22" x 22"

The story of "The Journey"

Whenever my artist friend Marilyn invited me to a watercolor meeting, I went. I always learned something that stimulated my thinking. On this particular night, the guest artist was demonstrating collage. She took her own paintings that she didn't like (ones that I thought were gorgeous!) and she tore them into pieces and used them to create new collages. I was fascinated. As she tore her paintings I began to see them as fabric, as if she were tearing printed fabric.

I thought, "Why not attach fabric onto needlepoint canvas?" The Journey became my first Canvas Collage.

I began by working with upholstery fabric, 12 mesh needlepoint canvas, cotton floss and Persian wool.

I cut the pieces at random and placed them on the canvas. Soon a theme began to appear. The shapes looked like a person (me probably), the head branching upward into the foliage, very flat landscape reminiscent of my visit to the Grand Canyon, and the sunset reminding me of hope and promise.

I attached the pieces of fabric to the canvas with simple couching stitches and using floss and metallic. The remaining exposed canvas was stitched with colors that matched the collaged fabric allowing the fabric and stitching to blend and flow together.

The sunset adds a depth to the picture and radiates warmth of color that the fabrics don't have. This color contrast has helped to create what I observe in nature that as the sunset dominates in color, the surrounding landscape pales. The sunset also serves to contrast. It dominates by size, emphasizing the how "small" we are in the grand scheme of things. It calms the action of The Journey by its serene nature.

The person on the journey is growing, branching out and moving into new terrain, traveling with mustered courage. It's not always a smooth path, as you can see by the rocks and thistles.

>Click within the stitchings to see the detail images: