Hope

 

Hope 

Quilt No. 152

Two worlds. Will we have a peaceful existence or will we live with the consequences of war? This is what came to mind when Cherrywood Fabrics announced their 2024 challenge: Poppy.  

Each year Cherrywood Hand Dyed Fabrics holds a juried art quilt contest. They choose the theme and only the fabric supplied in a curated bundle of their fabrics may be used to create an entry. To be sure, it is always a true challenge to meet all the parameters of the competition. It’s tricky and fun and daunting, and in my case usually starts out with a few months of Design Despair. The Poppy Challenge was no exception. Remembrance Day poppies played a prominent role in my life when I was growing up, so this quilt had a lot to say.

In Canada, the annual Poppy Campaign of The Royal Canadian Legion honors the sacrifices of the veterans and celebrates the privilege of living in a world free of tyranny. My dad lived through the hard times of The Depression and served in the navy during World War II. He knew dark days. Despite this, he was always hopeful, never dwelled on the past. Dad also served faithfully as a Legion member and often filled the role of Poppy Campaign Chairman at our local branch.  Each fall our kitchen bloomed with stacks of poppy boxes on their way to spread their message. Even as a child I felt that their saturated blood red colour was well chosen.

When Cherrywood announced this year’s theme of Poppy, I immediately knew that I wanted to contrast the two worlds of peace and war. In one world the brilliant red poppy spreads its message of beauty and hope. In the other world a withered poppy presides over the folly of mankind.  I entertained many ideas that I simply could not work out artistically.  A pastoral scene of peace with farms and a village was gradually cultivated. A contrasting battle scene or a ruined village was beyond my artistic abilities as well as the strict limits of the fabric: 4 reds, 2 greens, 2 greys. 

I sought other ways to depict the consequences of war, looking up information on wars (so many, many more than I had ever imagined), and deciding to illustrate these using the death tolls of selected wars displayed on tombstones. Paring it down to the few wars you see depicted here was very difficult, but I settled on a mix of the most familiar wars and perhaps lesser-known wars with shocking death tolls.  I learned an awful lot along the way, coming to appreciate our secure and peaceful life, and how that is not the case for so many, past and present.

I was lucky enough to have this quilt juried into this Cherrywood Challenge. It will travel to major quilt shows throughout the U.S. during 2025. The show of these 225 Poppy quilts will spread a unified message: we remember. We will not cease to remember what others endured for us.  Our hearts are filled with thanks; are minds are filled with sorrow as to what has gone before and has still not ended.

This one’s for you, Dad. 

Other Cherrywood quilts that have joined the travelling shows in previous years include

Monarch Challenge:  Why Mexico

Bob Ross Challenge: Beyond the Palette

Beyond the Palette

Beyond the Pallette

Quilt No. 128

One day my friend Joan phoned me up.  “I have this crazy idea” she said.  A mixture of fear and excitement charged the phone line between us.  

“Do you remember Bob Ross?”

Bob Ross, why was that name so familiar? I was pretty sure he was a sort of mildly famous person, or maybe he was that chiropractor who’d fixed my neck.  

I was non-committal.  “Sort of…”.  

“He’s that painter on TV” she said. Ahhhh yes, of course, Bob Ross.  Curly afro’d hair, gentle soul, kind voice, fabulous landscapes turned out in a half hour.  The Joy of Painting! A man with enough magic to make you think that you too could paint the gorgeous scenes that effortlessly appeared on his canvas. He always wielded this giant palette and you couldn’t help but want one of your own to brandish.  

“What about him?”  I worried that maybe he was coming over to dinner, and I’d be needed to make emergency dessert.  

“Have you ever heard of Cherrywood Fabrics?” This time I was sure of my answer – I had not.  

She went on to explain that Cherrywood was a company in Minnesota that made hand dyed fabrics and that each year they put out a challenge.  For a sum they would send you a bundle of their fabrics, and you would create an art quilt using only these fabrics, 20x20 inches in size.  Just like Bob Ross’s paintings, it sounded easy.  We would make this a mutual project, and we would knock it off in a day or two.  We ordered the fabric.

When it arrived, I waited until Joan and I were together before we did the reveal of the fabric. We sliced open the heavy envelope and there it was.  Eight fabrics.  At first blush none of the colours exactly went together.  Each piece of fabric was a different size, all of them relatively small. A slick of sweat broke out on our mutual brows.  What on earth had we done? Joan was not an art quilter; I had never designed a quilt with such a limited and possibly non-harmonious colour range.  

I would like to say that ideas came fast and furious.  They did not.  Looking for inspiration, we went online and looked at photos of Bob Ross’s artwork.  Wow – more intricate than we’d remembered, and here we were with a mere eight colours and no palette knife.  We sighed and she went home. I slid the fabric under another pile of fabric, an easy place to get lost in oblivion at my house.

Shame took over. Neither of us wanted to be so easily defeated…we took anther stab at it.  We kind of liked his barns, and maybe we could do something with a palette shape.  Joan was currently exploring curved flying geese, which has nothing to do with geese, but is a series of triangles sewn in a curved path.  Slowly we cobbled our concoction together, filled out the paperwork for the contest and hoped for the best.  

I got the news in an email that our quilt had been juried in. I was over the moon, and phoned her from my cottage, where the reception is spotty at best.  Through the static alternating with dead zone on the phone line I yelled that we were “IN”.  At her end, it sounded like a foaming maniac was on the line. She calmly hung up and locked her door.  

I wondered if Bob Ross ever had this much artistic angst.