Charlotte Bird
Unlike much of my work, which is more abstract and spontaneous in development, these three quilts represent a new series which required planning and analysis. All were sketched to make sure the imagery worked, both in the overall picture composition and in telling teh stories. All the goddesses’ stories give them human forms, so I spent many hours working on figure proportionality and the arm and hand placements. The hands, even where concealed, are my hands borrowed by way of a selfie. My photocopier along with a proportion scale made the parts fit. the pieces are fuse appliqued as with my other work, but accuracy in fitting the pieces together was a new challenge.
Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea and marine mammals,; Fog Woman, the Tlingit goddess responsible for annual salmon spanning; and Xi Wang Mu, the Taoist Queen Mother of the West, dispenser of prosperity, longevity, and eternal bliss, are goddesses whose stories explain existential truths in their cultural context. The stories depict them as powerful protectors, cultural warriors, and thoughtful role models for being individual and self-possessed: competent, confident, challenging, protective, multi-faceted.
