Goodbye, Dear Friend

"Sometimes You Can Walk on Water"
(c) 2017

I'm just home from my two-day exhibit of quilted and hooked art at the annual Encore! Lacombe Art Show & Sale -- and I'm over the moon with the results.  Excluding 2023, when I was Featured Artist, it was my best weekend of sales since 2018, when another artist purchased my large piece, "Sometimes You Can Walk on Water", inspired by a photo my daughter took of herself, walking over the frozen Astotin Lake to Elk Island, here in Alberta.  

I was delighted to sell six of the eight 6" x 6" mini hooked art pieces I created in the last two weeks, as well as this larger hooked and framed piece, "Jewels in the Water", which I created last fall (shown below before final finishing:

It was purchased by an old friend with whom I used to sing harmonies at church.  She bought an art quilt of mine several years ago and now she has a new piece in a new-to-me textile art medium -- a real blessing, as our lives have diverged a bit and we've not sung together in several years.

But the Very Special Story of this weekend's success -- the story behind the title of this post -- came about, as such stories do, by serendipity.

A woman came to see my work, having dropped in to the art show -- unplanned -- after visiting the Mary C. Moore Library, just down the hall in the same building, the Lacombe Memorial Centre.

She has recently returned from living many years outside Canada.  She's bought a home in Lacombe (or area), from whence she came, and it's being renovated, so she is staying with her brother in the meanwhile.

In his guest room is a piece of mine, which I created many years ago.  I remember it well because it features power poles along a roadway, based on a photo I took almost 20 years ago at a quilting retreat at Northbow Lodge (no longer used for that purpose) in 2008.  I called it "Sentinels"...and it's the only piece of my textile art that I've ever sold to a man. (Most men look politely -- especially if they're artists themselves -- but then their eyes glaze over. I won't say anything more on that!)

Anyway...she saw it...and when she happened on the Art Show/Sale...she stopped in...and found my booth and said to me something to the effect of "I know your work! My brother has one of your pieces in his home!"  So we talked, and she found this dear piece of mine -- my final exam piece for my City & Guilds of London Level 2 Certificate in Creative Techniques: Quilting.  I acquired that certificate in 2012 after 3 years of online study with the wonderful artist Linda Kemshall of the UK.  

It's a piece I created using self-dyed fabric (sky), naturally-dyed fabric (tree trunks) from my friend arlee barr in Calgary, recycled sythetic fabric from an old, thrifted sweater, and commercial fabric, quilted and then embellished with contemporary hand embroidery.

"Trio" - (c) 2012

From this piece, based on aspen along a road near my home, I created a bed-sized quilt as a commission for a dear, very elderly friend -- a gift to herself, she told me, for her 99th birthday (2019). She made her request in June of that year; her birthday was in the third week of October.

Taking inspiration from the wonderful art quilter, Katie Pasquini Masopust, in her book "Artful Log Cabin Quilts" (which my daughter, conveniently, had just given me for Xmas!), I made it into "Prairie Quintet" -- five tree trunks -- so that it could be twin-bed sized.

"Prairie Quintet" -- finished, September 2019

Yes; she got it in time for her birthday. She put it on her bed -- a fact to which is testified by her nephew (he sent me photos) -- but she never slept under it.  An artist (painter) herself, she simply wanted a piece of art on her bed.  Every night she would fold it carefully and set it on a surface near her bed.  Every morning she would make her bed and cover it with the quilt.

Alas, she only did so for just over 8 months -- she died in May 2020 -- not of Covid, but of heart failure, about 5 months before her centenary.  Her elder son advised me of her passing, and I expressed to him hope that one of the younger generation in the family would become the new owner of that quilt.

Once I took up rug hooking as an art medium, with my fondness for aspen, I decided to see if I could recreate it in that format.  I chose a 12" x 12" size, and got it framed.  This time there are only two tree trunks, so I've entitled it "Duo" -- and I hung it with "Trio" this weekend at the art show.  Someday, I hope that it too will find a new loving home:

"Duo" (c) 2026
yarn and fabric strips hooked
into burlap, 12" x 12", framed

I don't think there'll be another 'iteration' of this idea, but I do rather have a fondness for aspen/birch...so who knows where the muse will take me?

As Nina-Marie opines this week, over at "Off the Wall Friday", "every finished piece is proof that courage is stitched one seam at a time."  Or -- I might add -- one stitch, one hooked loop, one brush stroke, one thrown bit of clay, one turn on the lathe, one step at a time.

Where will your memories and your dreams take you this week? Perhaps one teeny, tiny bit more -- as you Create Beauty Every Day.  Remember, Gentle Readers, there is Light in the Making.

Until next time, eh?  A bientot!