Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A quilt of many colors

I was watching tv and stumbled upon a quilting program on one of those PBS channels. I love that they have different things than regular tv. I am also a quilter and am fascinated by women who have such a talent. I'm just a beginner. The quilters in this show were artists........textile artists and I was just green with envy.

There was even one man that used to paint but decided he liked to paint with threads much better. He said sadly his muse seems to get him up at 3am. lol. But he starts with an idea then embellishes it with threads. Part of it was because in the beginning he felt his stitches were not good and it was a way to cover up mistakes but in time he found it was HIS thing. I was amazed looking at that. He would paint with threads some thick to texturize an object or just tons of rows of zigzaging to fill in an area. But his quilts were very different and rather interesting.

Another woman took fabrics...she was amazed at folks who make squares and have to piece it all. She felt those people were the true artists and yet if you saw her creations you wouldn't think that. Hers were fabrics encrusted with beads, buttons, ribbon flowers, yoyos and laces. She said there are folks who keep all the beads separate...red in one jar, blue in another, etc. She liked to keep some of the colors she was working with all together and then once in awhile throw in a different color for texture or surprise. I love her idea of embellishing a fabric that way. She said her quilts tho would be too heavy to use...the buttons and such plus you cant just throw them in the wash. But it was beautiful art and another way to create. I want to make a mermaid quilt one day and have been collecting some fabrics and beads and things in the hopes to maybe make it like a Victorian crazy quilt. After seeing hers tho I'm inspired more.

But a vision of God popped into my head while watching this show. After all it was about creation, mans creations. But can you imagine long ago........God creating? I had this visual of him sitting there with his feet up sipping a coffee and thinking ...I'm bored and I want company, what can I do .....then letting his imagination run wild. And we all see how that came out. But imagine a blank canvas.......the black sky, an open dark void, endless. I can see God stand up and with a wave of his arm........sprinkle the sky with objects, some planets, some stars. He would then stand back and look at it.....tweaking it here and there till he deemed it perfect.


The man who made those thread quilts said he would get lost in his creations then have to come back to reality. I imagine God had to also. Or perhaps he was just tired and decided to go back to sipping his coffee, relaxing and gazing at his lovely creation. But then then next day he would look at the vast expanse of stars and say.....that was fun.....I want to do more. So he focuses on a planet.....perhaps earth. Well its very dark still so he makes light......and the planet appears but looks so sad and barren. So he creates land and water and sky......oh wow....look at that. Then after spending endless time creating goes back to rest, his muse spent for the moment.

And so he rests and his mind doesn't as he starts to think of all kinds of things to put on this planet. And he gets up in the middle of his nite, creation of all kinds of things running thru his head.......he waves his arms once again and POOF!! mountains,,,,,oceans ,,,green trees, grasses .....and maybe he sneezes while doing that and some beautiful rainbow appears............and he loves the colors in it! Says wow, I really like that!!! And waves his arms more and beautiful flowers appear......blue, red, pink................oh yes and yellow.....orange too. Oh look how beautiful it all is!!! And God marvels at his own creativity.

Finally worn out he naps. When he wakes up he sits down once again with his coffee, enjoying such beauty. But hes sad.....he thinks I'm the only one who sees this. And so he thinks hard and says I will make creatures. Yes that's it, creatures to roam the earth to enjoy all Ive created. And so once again the muse hits him and he waves his arms and creates animals, and fish and birds........filling the water, earth and sky . And makes some of them colorful like the rainbow and the flowers. God has created this beautiful Eden.......from far away it looks like a quilt, pieced and made with love.

And for awhile God is happy. Its all so amazing. But like most artists once you make one thing.....your muse is onto another thing. You never rest...the muse is your life. God took all the colors and made a huge patchwork of beauty but he realized still no one else can enjoy it. True he made animals but they didn't have the capacity to see it like God did. They loved his flowers and grasses and ate them. Or swam in the waters or flew in the sky but they didn't have the realization of what it really was.

Finally God knew what he had to do........he had to make something that could see what he saw and so he made man. And he made man with the same things inside of God himself. He made man able to see the beauty and use it and love it. Over time that itself was enough. But man cannot wander aimlessly......and so ......God decided to let man create. He sat back and watched. While many have created bad things.....so many have created good. And so artists who quilt or paint or patch things together to make beauty or anyone for that matter.....becomes a part of God. Our maker...gave us the muse to make.


Now I imagine God up there........much older perhaps altho time they say is irrelevant where He is .....sitting there looking at the other planets ..and creating more elsewhere. Far enough apart so we might not see the other and copy. Each creation unique. And I do believe he gets such joy from seeing what we all come up with.

1 comment:

  1. Hey, thanks for stopping by my blog. I love this posting of your. I personally feel that we must create so to honor our Creator as he made us. You must post some of your quilts for everyone to see. Stop by this earlier posting of mine to see the amazing quilts by Tristan Robin. Unbelievable. http://musingsofaseawitch.blogspot.com/2009/07/can-i-be-more-blonde.html
    Sea Witch

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