textile art Archives | Textiles & Text

Beyond Planetary Boundaries

I love this TED Talk by Johan Rockstrom: Let the Environment Guide our Development. He speaks of the “quadruple squeeze” on the Earth and the precarious position we have put ourselves in. He talks about a shift in mindset, turning crisis into opportunity, the need for redefining sustainable development, and allowing the nine “planetary boundaries” to be our guide in protecting the planet. After watching this talk, I focused my thoughts and created a wall hanging called Beyond Planetary Boundaries.

Adam and Eve have drastically changed their Garden of Eden. Global warming, polluted air and water, and degraded forests are a few of the perils caused by their sins. The warnings from autopsied symbols of health and spirit are ignored.

The Ghost Tree

It makes me happy to see the ghost tree resembling the real trees of Ruffner Mountain.

Made of remnants of canvas from the curtains I made for Ruffner Mountain’s Nature Center, the ghost tree stands in the big room of the Nature Center. I originally made the tree as part of an installation for Naked Art Gallery. Stitched and sutured, pieced and patched, the tree symbolizes the connections between all living things. It serves as a reminder of fragmented forests and trees lost to urban sprawl and rampant development, but it is also a metaphor for hope and the power of nature to rebound if given a chance. A tree’s life is fragile. It is a building block in a forest of interconnected organisms. Tug on a string, and the entwined shifts and bends, branches break, and life unravels. Read more…

Textiles, Text, & Terrain

From time to time, I’ll write essays here on the blog. I’ll post and repost garden profiles and how-to articles, as well as explanations of my processes of making textile art.

I craft an essay much like I do my fabric art. I start with putting words and thoughts to paper in no particular order. Bits and pieces, quotes, descriptions, and explanations, I get everything out and onto the paper, and then transcribe the words to the computer. The next day, I begin crafting the piece. I open a blank document and begin plucking out phrases and sentences out of the pile. I copy and paste the words to the blank document, rearranging order and flow, weaving the pieces together, tweaking and stitching together the words until the piece is finished. I love that the same kind of approach works for all that I do. The process is efficient and streamlined. It works for me.