In Process

I really like sharing pieces that are in process. Glimpsing the unfinished, the unresolved. Here are couple of pictures of my most recent piece. I am continuing with the mapping series. I am enjoying the whole cloth approach to these pieces. Painting on the fabric, cutting, applying stitching, inserting imagery. Creating a map of our everchanging landscapes.

We Can Use This Map

We Can Use This Map, copyright Linda Ruel Flynn, 2009.
(Please do not use this image without permission. It is not nice. Just ask.)

This is the piece I sent off to the Surface Design Members' Exhibit in Kansas City, MO. I began a series of 'whole cloth' quilts that are grounded in daily news reports of loss of land mass, polluted water, displaced species etc. I began to think about the need for our own maps. What would we use to guide ourselves when the cartographers can't keep up with the ever changing landscape? This piece is a glimpse of what the other quilts look and feel like. A map made by an amateur cartographer, used by a community, folded, torn, changed on a whim. It is a tool. I take great inspiration from the American slave quilts used as maps and communications during the underground railroad.

The argument to just keep going

I am going to channel asparagus energy from now on. I bought asparagus about five days ago. Recut the ends, like you are supposed to, put the bunch in a couple inches of water until we were ready to eat it. Well, it is growing. Check out the asparagus sprouts. Now I feel like I can't eat it. It is growing. Now, I don't have any trouble going out to the garden and cutting whatever I want for dinner. Somehow this is different. It just doesn't want to go gently into that good night of sauteed leeks and garlic. At the same time, those new shoots are probably going to be mighty tender.

So the next time you think-that is it, I give up, think of the asparagus.