Two weeks
ago I had hitched a ride with my husband into town to go to a doctor’s
appointment, but then had to wait in the café a little while for him to pick me
up.
As I was
drinking tea and waiting I started thinking. I am member of a quilt group who
publishes a calendar every year, and the theme for next year’s calendar is
‘light’. Except for the first time that I participated in the calendar
production, the year after I joined the group, I have unfortunatley always had
a bit of a problem with the topics that get chosen as a theme. One was
‘recipes’, which seemed to suggest a much more pictorial realization than is my
usual approach to quilting. Last year’s theme ‘pairs’ had to be made while I
was sewing for Ste. Marie-aux-Mines and left me totally uninspired before that
exhibition was over. In the end, I think I did a good job with both of these
topics, but they took their time to develop.
This year’s
production had to be finished much earlier because the quilts are supposed to
be shown in the upcoming exhibition of the group in May. To my surprise, again
inspiration failed me, although ‘light’ is a very important topic in my life.
Perhaps my negative experiences with ‘Illuminated’ had an influence on my mind,
suggesting that this was not a good topic to deal with in quilts for me? I
don’t know. (‘Illuminated’ has been removed from Beyond Comfort and is on its
way back home, and I am still hoping to be able to revive it, but that’s
another story.)
The café,
however, helped release a bit of creativity, which had been simmering but not
managed a breakthrough yet. A while ago I had bought some reflector fabric, as
used in security clothing for outside workers like garbage collectors, or on
safety vests for small school children, thinking that I would incorporate it in
the quilt.
But how? An
enlarged version of historic East German pedestrian traffic lights?
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East German pedestrian traffic lights are different... |
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... and they come in a female version, too. |
Not exactly
original, really.
Give it
another try with an LED-string, so that the lights would be reflected by the
fabric? Problematic, because I would have to figure out a way to deal with the
LED-string without integrating it too closely with the entire quilt to avoid
another mishap like the one with Illuminated, which might be ruined if I have
to exchange the entire string of lights.
In the days
before the café I had at least got to the point where I had decided that I was
going to do something on the saying “Wer als letzter geht, macht das Licht aus”
(the last person to leave, turn off the lights).
Should I
machine stitch the sentence onto the quilt in the colours of the rainbow? Nice,
but how many people would actually associate this with ‘light’?
Finally I
decided to cut the letters of the sentence from the reflector fabric and
appliqué those onto the black background fabric that I had set my mind on long
ago. This already felt like The Fall – because I usually don’t like or do appliqué. Perhaps it’s the influence from so many
people in England
doing it? Who knows.
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Although I don't usually do appliqué, I had bought a special foot for the 820 recently - nothing is coincidental in life, you know. |
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Alternating between background and foreground letters. |
But I also really
wanted to have some light source included. The problem was how to integrate
light into the quilt without it turning too silly, too tacky, and, especially important,
too vulnerable. Of course it would have been fun to have a light switch
somewhere on the quilt so that viewers could turn on and off lights which would
then be reflected by the reflector fabric. But I didn’t want to invite people
to touch the quilt. And a cord would have put even more strain on the quilt or
on the hanging. Of course, reflector fabric is most effective if you look at it
in a dark situation with a light source directed at it. How could I put the
quilt inside a black box and yet give people a chance to look at it, with a
light source directed at it? We have two dark blue fabric storage containers in
the basement, which I had wanted to throw out repeatedly because we were not
using it. Perhaps this is finally the moment of glory that they have been
waiting for? Now all I need is one of those flashlights with a turning handle
that only light up when you are actually turning the handle, thus producing
energy.
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What you can't see... is the 'aus' ('off) in the lower right hand corner, stitched in black. |
The
exhibition opens next week Thursday, in the Old Jail in Freising.
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Entrance to the former guard's apartment, where the exhibition will be on display. |
Come and
have a look, it's pretty close to the Munich airport!