No. 8
40" x 34"
Grief comes in waves. I made the quilt top for this one was in December, my first Christmas without my mom, compounded by the realization that Kamala was really not going to be president.
I had a shape, but decided to math it out...which is NOT my forte'. So, I enlisted the help of my adult kid, who freakin' LOVES math. He derived the equation to plot my curve: x^2 + x^4 all divided by 2. And the equation was scaled to fit the size of the work I wanted to make. Tossing in some values to the equation made it easy to plot some points and then draw the curve between them. I am sure it would have been fine without the math, and just a freehand curve, but this was fun too!
The curve was easy to piece once the pieces were cut out.
Yes, the corners were bulky. Sigh....
One of the fastest pieces I have ever made, but was also quite fun and satisfying!
Then the quilting. You can see a big grid on the quilt. I had planned to put in more dividing lines between the big squares, but after I completed the big squares, it looked finished to me. And it does reference graph paper, which is the look I was going for. It was so hard just to let it be finished. I kept wanting to add more and more. So, the growth with making this piece was letting it be simple and minimalist. Very hard!!
My artist statement: It
is nice not to be alone, but I would prefer not to be in the steep
walled pit of grief and despair. How to get out of here?
Which reminds me of other things I have learned. The intensity of grief is temporary. It is not always this bad. Having others around me helps. Work helps. Gardening helps. And cats definitely help. And, in this first year, the grief still returns, and I just feel it, until it passes. I don't know if the grief has lessened or if my coping with the grief has gotten better. My acceptance of it's presence is definitely better.
