Connected

We are all connected. The seas, the creatures, the moon and stars and sun all move together to create life and write our story. We rise and fall like the tides and somewhere in there, there's a splash of magic.

That was my artist statement for this quilt.

This quilt is one of the first ones I’ve done that has more of a story to it.  The original idea was to have sea stars rising up from the ocean and when the cross the horizon line, they become the night time stars. I loved the idea of a strip quilt for the background.  It gradates from a dark night sky into a sunset, and then from the bright surface of the ocean down to the darker depths. As I was looking at the original sketch, I thought there needed to be more life and more connection between the sea creatures and the elements. I had this idea that an octopus would have his arm(s) full of sea stars and would be sending them up at dusk. This created an incomplete circular motion, so a setting sun seemed to complete that circle.  But, of course we needed to have a moon in the sky with those stars, and I loved the idea of it being a crescent shape to mimic the crescent wave.  The moon affects the tides so that seemed like another beautiful connection. I love the overlap of the two crescent shapes, especially since they both are in constant motion.  The last piece to be added was the mermaid.  Since all the other elements were connected in some way, I thought another creature should be involved in helping the moon to rise up into the sky. When I added her, it felt complete.  I love all the bold colors and prints and how they work together to create a beautiful composition that feels like it is in motion.

Each sea star got its own little unique design.

I thought the moon needed the mermaid’s help.

This batik and this octopus are two of my very favorite things.