As the Maine winter goes on, and on, and on I find myself longing for spring. The fact that I have been working up Hawaiian Applique designs for my upcoming OLLI class has intensified the longing. These images are not, strictly speaking, Hawaiian Applique but rather a use of some of the techniques to work up a Maine crocus. The title of this screen is Merrymeeting Spring and was co-created with my father 12 years ago. He designed and built the frame in Maine while I made the panels in Arizona. They came together for a show at Scott Potter's gallery in Portland Maine.
These crocus flowers are the first green things to poke their heads up through the snow at this time of year and I lived, for several years, in a house that my father built on Merrymeeting Bay in Topsham. I was thinking about those years when I made the panels. And now, when I look at the screen in my studio I think of my father. Having a piece like this that we created together is almost like having him in my studio. I remember his hands and how they looked working with his tools. The work that his hands did, that my hands do, the work that any of us create contains a whisper of who we are and can hold and pass on that whisper indefinitely.
RSS Feed
