Memory Fragments

Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in posting my entry for the Memory Challenge. Everything conspired against me to get this quilt posted on time.

Have to say that the theme "Memory" threw me a bit, was racking my brain for a good bit to come up with a satisfactory entry. But that's the good thing about themes, they really make you think sometimes....

So my piece is time is a bit free-form.

No-one really knows how the brain works and how memories are formed. So my piece is about memory fragments, the little snippets of colour and events that make us who we are.

The piece is made from hand-dyed fabric, net, organza, snippet of net curtain etc. which has been machine quilted.

Proudly presenting

Finally finished, here is Memory #1, The Game :

From the beginning I  had in mind to use the idea of this game. In germany it is very popular (mostly amongst children) and known as MEMORY. The cards are lying upside down in the beginning, and one has to find the pairs of the same pictures.
First i collected pictures and fabrics wich said "memory" to me to use them for the cards.

Do you find the pairs? :-)
For the first time i used photoprint on fabric, it worked very well, but i think, it's not my medium. But here it was really usefull. My "memory"-items are
- a recipe from my grandma, written down by my mother for me (she still uses this sütterlin-font)
- some heritaged laces and cross-stitched fabric
- pictures from a wonderful day at the Rhine 
- a handmade print showing leaves from my garden
- a fragment of one of my to-do-lists (very helpful memory tool...)
The pairs are not exatly same, because even memories are never two exactly the same. 

The cards are loosely pinned to this background:

The background is more about loosing memory, memories are fading, get lost or mixed up. There are leftovers from the fabrics I used for the cards, parts of loved and wornout batic pants and grey woolfelt where memories are lost forever due to Alzheimer and others.
 At the moment it's hanging in my sewingroom without the cards pinned to it, and I really love it this way. I could imagine to produce more cards and play with them, changing the design from time to time.
If you visit my blog, flicKwerk , you'll find more posts about the process, labeled  "memory"

Sneek peek/also, tardy to the party

When the "memory" challenge was announced I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

Ever since my mother passed away in March, I had this piece in mind.  Thirty-five years ago, I wrote a play called "The Chair By The Window", the titular chair representing the complex mix of love, loss, and betrayal that comprised my relationship with my mother.  The play won an award, and was mounted by the Sears Festival, [does the Sears Festival even exist anymore or was it a local thing?]).

Twenty years ago, I found myself writing the piece again - oddly, and against my will - from my mother's perspective in the form of an unpublished novel, also called The Chair By The Window.

After the intial weeks of shock and numbness wore off, I felt a strong need talk about my mother's and my relationship again, through cloth.  I had intended to make a physical representation of that chair, and since the call was announced, have made sketches, written notes, gathered inspirational images, and created it in my mind again and again. 

But it seems, I don't yet have the emotional distance from her death that I need to bring it to life at the moment.

I have had in mind another piece, which wasn't meant for this challenge, but will serve just as well.  This one has been percolating for at least a year and it's about an aspect of my relationship with my father. 

It involves a man's dress shirt - and really - that's the image I've been carrying in my head for this last year or so - just that image of a man's dress shirt - the kind your kindergarten teacher asks your mother for, so that you can wear it in art class to protect you your clothes.

The other night, it all came together for me and I'll be starting construction this weekend.  But it will take me a couple of weeks to make it, I think, so I won't have my "memory" piece ready until the middle of the month.

Hope that's okay - and I look forward to seeing what the rest of you create.

Thanks,

Kit

6th Challenge - Memory

It falls to me to set the sixth challenge and as I will not have computer access for a while I thought I should post it now so everyone has time to think about it and get started.

I was looking through a workbook this morning and found a photograph of a painting I did about a happy time in my childhood and the word 'Memory' came to mind so that is the theme for the next challenge. (I should say that my childhood was generally happy).

As we have not yet all revealed for 'Landmarks' can I suggest a reveal date for 'Memory' of 1st October?