A Funny Thing

I received an email from Monika at My Sweet Prairie who said she had seen a piece I entered into a local competition and what a coincidence that was. The piece she was talking about was in the Canadian Quilter (and can you believe I do not have a copy??)  from 2007 or 2008. I received 2nd place with this wall hanging and it is about 52 x 42.

Intermission

The theme for the competition was "Canada Games" because the Canada Games were being held in my community of Whitehorse, Yukon that year. As an aside, I wore the second place metal everywhere I went during the Canada Games and proudly said I was a metal winner as well! (even though most Canada Games participants are between 18-24 and I am at least double that age)...  :-)

The piece was created out of a photo taken by an online friend. (Notice a pattern here??) The picture was taken in the States with the skates and stick exactly where there are in this piece. But the skies were dull and the lake was a bottomless pit black and grey. I had recently been on a lake near my house that had no snow on it because the wind had blown it all away and you could see every tree perfectly in the clear lake ice. I decided to add a bright, pink sky because I thought it would be a good foil for the mountains and play off the reflections in the ice.  

The hills are dyed cheesecloth, and if you look at the enlarged photo, you may see the straight line below the mountains is made from a partially unravelled tweed jacket. It made a nice line of trees straight across the piece. I also added strings as the skate laces. Finally, I layered white cheesecloth over the ice in a variety of layers to suggest small snow mounds and imperfections in the ice.

close-up of hills and reflection

I haven't thought about this piece very much since I made it, but Monika's email made me think about it again. I see my inexperience here and there and realize how much I have learned and the techniques I still work to perfect. I want to go back and fix the clouds in the sky and the reflections on the water but I have to remind myself that THIS piece was what pushed my into teaching. And this piece is a snapshot of my skills and abilities at that time. So once again I resist the urge to change it, to better it, to morph it into something it never was. "It is what it is" will be the motto here..