The Endeavourers’ Reveal Day — Favorite Book

It is time for the reveal day of a little art quilt.  Our online group The Endeavourers sets quarterly themes to spark our creativity, and this time the theme was “Favorite Book.”

My favorite non-fiction book is Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. It is a book about observing and reacting to nature, and learning how other people and cultures have witnessed it, and the scientific details involved. Annie took daily walks along a creek in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.  She didn’t just write ordinary or predictable observations;  she blended amazing scientific facts into the narrative.  Anyone can write something like, “I saw a cute green caterpillar chewing up some leaves;” Annie wrote instead, “There are 228 separate and distinct muscles in the head of a common caterpillar.”

It is not an easy book to read; references to past scientists are layered into descriptions of the darker side of nature like predators and parasites.  But what has stuck with me is the mindset, that the nature in our own backyards can be as memorable and inspiring as in sites of well-known grandeur.  And it is the only book I have ever read that combines the poetic and the scientific so thoroughly, on every page.

Early in the book she talks about looking at a familiar tree, and seeing every leaf lit:

Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with lights in it.  I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame.  I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed.  It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.

She refers to that experience over and over throughout the book:

On that cedar tree shone, however briefly, the steady, inward flames of eternity…Experiencing the present purely is being emptied and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall.

For this project, I didn’t try to recreate any event that Annie wrote about in her book; I portrayed one of my own memories of a time I had shared her mindset.  One day as I went down to our pond, I was struck by everything happening at the same time — I could hear bluebirds twittering, blue jays shrieking, cicadas shrilling, and I could see a very old turtle lumbering through the water, with little minnows swimming all around, and dragonflies circling through the air.  All of those creatures living their own lives, unaware of humans.  It is a day I think of often, so it was fun to commemorate it.

“Keep Swimming”, an art quilt for The Endeavourers quarterly challenge.

I wanted to use that dark green and blue batik in the outer border for the entire background, but the animal figures did not stand out then.  The light background fabric I chose had faded blue and tan ripples, but it ended up looking a little chalky. I used mostly batiks for the figures of the animals, and for the bluebirds and blue jays, I used fabric that I hand-dyed several years ago.  I outlined most but not all of the creatures with beads to capture that sense of being illuminated.

I enjoyed working with the beautiful materials, and I was so happy to use up a portion of my bead stash.

To find out what other people chose as a favorite book, please visit The Endeavourers blog!

Category : Applique, Quilting
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