We must use what we have to invent what we desire. —Adrienne Rich alchemy: a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation or combination Prairie Skin, a work in progress, is a life-size, reversible, pieced and quilted construction which is large enough to wrap a body. Part of my Mapping Nebraska project, this piece is informed by my travels across the state and my memory of its prairies and grasslands. I remember my first art teacher’s teacher telling me …
When I stitch the landscapeTravel its contoursCarving a canyonTraversing a slopeSubduing low-lying land with hatching My fabric terrain is neutralColorless and abstracted, like the map,except for the waterwhich is stitched in blue Listen to more at http://chirb.it/rkJ8s6
How many creeks have I drawn on my Locator Map? Every one that I could see. I’d look at a topographic map and draw with pencil on 12 inch squares of Tyvek. I would branch off from a river and continue, my line growing finer and fainter, until the creek, and my line, disappeared. I began to love those meandering lines, that tracery that became denser and then more spare, that branched past the towns and …
