As many of you know 2007 has been all about completion for me. I have whittled down the stack of incomplete quilts in my studio to about a hand full. The hardest part about this process has been in deciding which pieces I would actually finish. Sometimes I get fired up about a project only to find that it should have stayed an experiment — that the idea was really never supposed to be a full blown pie ce. The idea for the quilt Ebony Phoenix came to me after rereading Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place for the 100th time. What I love about her work is that I find something new every time I read her book. Naylor’s words appear in color to me. Her characters have “Nutmeg arms” that lean over windowsills. Their “gnarled ebony legs carry groceries up double flights of stairs and saffron hands string out wet laundry . . . .” Naylor ends her description of the women who lived in Brewster Place as “ebony phoenixe[s], each in her own time and with her own season had a story.”
To say that I am a visual person would be an understatement. Words always seem to transform themselves into images in my head. Naylor’s description of the women of Brewster place appeared this way in my sketchbook in a couple of different versions before I decided on the design of the quilt.
Here is the nearly finished quilt. Rollover or click on the image to see it in more detail. I have been hand quilting it with procion dyed perle cotton. I have one last section to quilt and then I will bind it. I am currently working my way through the Painted Quilt so I haven’t ruled out adding more color to the piece once the quilting is done.
Egyptians named the phoenix “Bento” which means “to rise in brilliance.” The phoenix is said to represent the inner ability in all of us to emerge transformed out of our self-imposed limitations and life’s greatest sufferings. Makes me think of something we used to play as children –rise sister, rise. wipe your weeping eyes.
