New challenge word!

Our third challenge word is:

CONVERGENCE

–noun
1.an act or instance of converging.

2.a convergent state or quality.

3.the degree or point at which lines, objects, etc., converge.

4.Ophthalmology. a coordinated turning of the eyes to bear upon a near point.

5.Physics.
a.the contraction of a vector field.
b.a measure of this.

6.Meteorology. a net flow of air into a given region.Compare divergence (def. 2)

7.Biology. similarity of form or structure caused by environment rather than heredity.

Odin's Ravens; Hugin & Munin

When I first started thinking about "Communication", I had more ideas than I needed. My first impulse was to go with "Communicating arteries", & "Neurons" (probably because of my medical background). I wasn't sure though that was the way I wanted to go. I also thought about eyes, & how they alone can communicate.

While I was letting my brain stew on it a bit, I was reading a book about the Vikings. I also had a close encounter with a Raven, & he posed for about 32 photos for me. In the book I was reading Hugin represented "thought, or mind" & Mumin was "memory". They were said to be messengers for the  Norse God, Odin. They would set upon his shoulder & whisper in his ear.

This reminded me of the time that a Raven helped me find a piece of lost mail. We stopped at our mailbox one Chinook windy, evening, & my DH tried to pull the mail out of the box, when a gust of wind (90+ mph), grabbed one of the envelopes & blew it away. Our hillside was covered in deep mushy snow, the envelope was white,& it was dark outside. We trudged through the snow, thigh deep, looking for a white envelope, on white snow, in the dark, with hurricane force gusts of warm winds. After about 30 minutes we gave up & went home.

The next day, I walked back down by the mailboxes, then up into the snow & woods, in the direction I thought most likely that the envelope would've traveled. I wandered up & down, looking, when I noticed a raven up on a wire, watching my every step, & chortling at me. I looked up at him, & said, "Fine, if you're so smart, tell me were my mail is". He tilted his head, & looked right at me, then flitted a little way up the road, & stopped looking down at the snow then back at me. I said, "OK, what have I got to lose?". & headed up the road toward the raven. Right below him in the snow, was the letter from my sister. I thanked him profusely, & always talk to the ravens when ever I see them.

While thinking about "Communication", & taking pictures of the raven, I decided that NOW was the time, that I could make the raven quilt that I've always wanted to make, so here it is.

The black sky part is black batting, with black Misty Fuse, covered with Angelina fibers for the Aurora Borealis, & a layer of black silk chiffon over it. The white lower part s white batting, with more Angelina fibers, & some bits of Whisper, covered with white silk chiffon. I realized after trimming it up, that I had cut it an inch short of the required 20 inches, so I added an inch of bead fringe (by hand of course)!

My ravens are completely made from thread. I used 3 colors to give them more life& dimension. Details will be on my blog.

Communication

I thought this was going to be a tough theme for me but shortly after the theme reveal, I was in one of my endless work meetings. It's always been interesting to me how a group of people can work and meet together for weeks on end, participate in the same projects and still they come together and are all on different planes. When I run meetings I try to start out the meeting getting everyone focused "on the same page" so to speak.

I decided to try to depict the phenomenon of groups of people and how they come to situations with different points of view and different levels of interest.


I will have a post on my blog in a few days with details about the construction of this piece.

Communication...

...through fiber and stitch.

I went with the simplicity of communication through fiber and stitch

The words are by Langston Hughes and I love the message; one I try to lead by and instill in my boys-

 never give up (or also known as our secret code NGU.)

You may read and see more detail here.

Circles 2: Spring Speaks

As part of my continuing series of circles for the Fiberactions group, I present "Circles 2: Spring Speaks"

For me, this work is about my own internal voice. I suffer from SAD, and this year was especially difficult for me with the very cold, very rainy winter we had here. So when it came time to start this project I can only say Spring was calling to me. The color choice was influenced by the fresh and changing light and the buds I began to see in my garden in February. And certainly the circle is representative of the ever present wheel of seasons and life, for which I am grateful to see it turn again this year!

Quilted, painted, with copper embellishment, mounted onto stretched canvas.

Competing Conversations: Miscommunication

 Communication is all about listening.

Communication is so important these days:  there are so many distractions around us, it is often hard to focus on the people and situations right in front of us.  It is hard to have a conversation without someone's cell phone ringing, or to listen to a friend when the conversation is interrupted.  I find it hard to concentrate with too much white noise... this has always been a problem for me.

The four blocks in this quilt are each having their own "conversation" with limited interaction, but they all obviously have things in common as well.      They are like guests at a party, holding their martinis and trying to impress the others around them, but making few connections and leaving unsatisfied.  In the mean time, the background "noise" continues...

Communicating With History

The theme Communication immediately brought to mind the written word, hieroglyphics, coded messages, rune stones and other forms of divination. Spiritually speaking, whatever we need to know about anything is right in front of us or around us. Everything speaks to us metaphorically. My quilt, Read Between the Lines, represents how our individual world communicates deeply with each of us. Read more about it on my blog.

All Together Now

I realized, while stressing over what I was going to do for this quilt, that I was glued to my television for two weeks in February watching the Olympics. What better example could I possibly find of mass communication to the whole world? My crazy quilt of the Olympic rings is the result. It is a celebration of all the nations that come together for one goal ... GOLD?

The rings are fused batiks with embroidery, beads, bangles and baubles, couched with silk sari ribbon, fabric and trim. (They're meant to be wonky!) The background consists of three pieces of shibori representing Canada's marvelous trees, mountains and sky. Hand quilted.

Globally Speaking

This piece addresses communication in two ways.

First, electronic communication is an amazing thing. We "converse" with people all over the world through the various electronic means and consider it to be the "normal" thing to do. Our world in indeed smaller and in constant motion in this digital age. We share our art and lives.

Second, quilting is a major form of communication for me. With it, I have found common ground and inspiration. But most significantly, I have developed friendships all over the world.

So my piece signifies both. The background and the disks are pieces of silk dupioni that I dyed. The globe is a line drawing from a coloring page that I printed on fabric and then colored with oil pastels. After it dried I sealed it with textile medium. I quilted a spiral in the globe to signify information travelling around the world.

The background is quilted with feathers going back and forth in opposite directions to signify the back and forth of communication and beauty communicated by our art form.

The little disks all have word beads with internet "language". More photos can be found on my blog

Signs and Symbols

Over the course of decades of travel and living in "foreign" countries I've come to realize the value of communications other than verbal.

One does not need to be in another country to be in a foreign place...another thing I learned as a military brat living in thirteen different communities within my first eight years. One becomes an observer of others...and how they communicate. This survival tactic served me well for those times that I've lived outside the country in real foreign places. Places where, because of the deficiencies in my own verbal skills, signs and symbols were the only means of communication.

Within the main fabric are all manner of symbols: Michelangelo's drawing of man, clocks,stamps, inkwells, text is several languages, eyeglasses and automobiles. As an acknowledgement that "money also talks" I have stitched five yen pieces onto the surface, along with other shiny bits. As for the black fabric it also holds potent symbols within African communities. It's funereal cloth with Andinkra symbols of the Asante people of Ghana.

Expression

We communicate in many ways. My quilt started with newspaper. Newspaper is a form if communication. We read about happenings in our world. We also need our eyes to read this newspaper, which leads me to another form of communication. Our facial expressions and eyes can communicate with others, without even speaking.

I started my quilt by making fabric-backed paper with newspaper. I then cut that up into strips and placed them on batting that I had prepared with Mistyfuse. I alternated the newspaper strips with assorted pink fabrics. I fused these to the batting and then added stitching to give the background some added texture. I lightly brushed some gesso across the background in a random fashion.

Next I drew the face on a piece of blank newsprint paper. I placed the drawing on top of the quilted background and stitched the lines of the face with black thread. I then removed the paper pattern.

Communication

What does the Internet 'look' like? How has it made the world 'smaller'? What has it done to/for communication? These are some of the things I was thinking of when I designed this quilt. See details on my blog .

Communication

Communication-in this age anything device used to communicate involves a circuit board, so that is my inspiration.The details are on my blog http://focus-on-fiber.blogspot.com/

Communication

“Silent Communication” 16″x20″ thread sketched on hand painted silk
More details on how I created this on my blog here.

More clues

That beautiful pink silk I showed you last time has since been cut into strips. I love my "GO"

cutter!

Add a little pink ribbon...
Take some equally gorgeous blue and green silk; cut it into various size circles and fuse it to some Pellon circles. Again, all cut with the "GO" cutter...fast and easy. Fuse another fabric to the backs and satin stitch the edges with rayon thread.
Then punch 1/8" holes in all the circles.
Have you figured it out yet? If not, stay tuned...next Monday (the 15th) it'll all become clear!

I really am working at it....

And that's the proof. But this is all you get until the reveal. Isn't that pink silk just yummy!