Walls and walls

 I'm sorry for being so late.  No excuses except procrastination which then lead to creating it's own series of logistical problems.  So I've done two.  One is based on my original idea that has been in my head for months and the other jumped in after I had seem some of your works.  

 

The first is based on a small dry stone wall of blue slate at the cottage which protects a small garden from the forest above.  I have an indigenous plant called lobelia cardinalis which blooms faithfully every year.  

The second quilt is based on a picture that I took whilst on a trip to Israel, Palestine and Jordan when one of our daughters was doing a post doc in Chinese history at the Hebrew University.  

We had a very interesting trip to Bethlehem, a place that Israelis are not allowed to visit.  We stayed in a lovely old hotel, met many friendly people  and were dismayed by the wall.  Banksy owns a hotel which used to have a lovely view but a wall was built literally across a narrow road and this is now the view.  Hence the name of the hotel:  The Walled Off Hotel.  The wall itself traverses Palestinian lands, takes away farms and olive groves and is definitely an eyesore.  There is of course too much history on either side, but often we only hear one part of it.  

Trump's Wall

Apologises for being so late, but, finally, here's my piece. I very rarely ever make a political piece, and I really hope I don't offend anybody, but I found that as Trump's presidency continued in the USA I got more and more annoyed with him. Towards the end I felt real anger with his treatment of people, and his flexibility with regards to the truth. When I started to think about walls, all I could see was Trump's wall between the USA and Mexico. So here's my piece....

It's a combination of two images. For the background I used a piece of public artwork installed in Soho, New York, in October 2020. https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/a-massive-mural-featuring-20-000-of-trumps-lies-has-been-installed-in-soho-102920 It contains 20,000 proven lies told by Trump during his time in power, coloured by topic. The foregound is from a photo of the metal fence installed in places between the USA and Mexico where someone manged to temporarily install some pink see-saws connecting the two sides. I've made the bars from a translucent fabric so that you can see through the wall to the lies beyond. The background and foreground actually have different perspectives, a nod towards the divided opinions about Trump, and also because I felt it made a slightly more interesting effect. Why did it take so long? Firstly I had forgotten the deadline was coming up, and only remembered a couple of days beforehand, just as I was leaving for the first visit to my mother for 9 months. While I was there I decided on the main design, but not on the method of making it. It was only when I was home again that I realised that there was no way I was going to be able to piece the background as I had hoped, and I would have to paint it. This took so much longer than I expected!! Everyday I would add another colour, then run out into the garden to take advantage of the good weather. When it came to adding the bars I found I had to use fusible bonding to keep them straight but as the fabric was so thin the glue oozed through the fabric causing me problems with the sewing - and I didn't dare iron it for too long as I know the chiffon would shrink and distort if it got too hot. Finally the outline of a person on the see-saw was added by hand. It's still not quite finished as I'm trying to decide whether to bind it as normal, or whether it would be better with a facing. I'm not sure whether I like the final image or not, but at least it allowed me to vent some of my feelings. Now, if we could only change Brexit.........