Bone Yard is both playful and serious, drawing on the crow and human skeletal system as symbols of the mystery of Death. Death is the point that connects us to what was and what has yet to be. It is the gateway for Birth, for that which dies in one place is reborn in another. Boneyard’s use of commercial fabrics to frame the four central panels is symbolic of the transition my own artwork is undergoing as much as it’s symbolic of the communal nature of the Graveyard. We all step through that doorway at some point; no one avoids Death.
Size: 55 inches x 55 inches (140 cm x 140 cm)
Materials: Distress Dye Inks, commercial stamps and stencils, Dharma procion dyes, Kona cotton, cotton thread.
Created: 2022
Series: Transitions
Current Location: Private Collection, NFS
My Thoughts on the Work
Bone Yard’s four central panels are about the changing seasons and about the ways in which The Ancestors are with me all year long. I aimed to set the pieces slightly off-center to emphasize the discomfort my culture has with recognizing the place The Ancestors hold in all our lives.
Bone Yard asked me to figure out how to quilt a piece that exceeds the size of my new Long Arm Quilting Machine frame in its smaller size. When we’re growing, we often need to work with tools that aren’t quite big enough in spaces that aren’t quite right. Although I created this one first, it was the last to be quilted. I wanted to let the whole of the series help me make the transition to using the long arm successfully first.
