Dear Diary
In October, I got a wild hair to join quilter Heidi Parkes' virtual Diary Quilting workshop. It met weekly via Zoom, plus two optional working sessions per week, making it completely doable. And if you're unfamiliar with Heidi's work, there is something I find so appealing about it. She uses her quilts to tell stories - though perhaps the story isn't imminently available to you, the viewer, because it's encapsulated in a visual code. Heidi uses colors, shapes, and stitching, plus the history and background of fabrics themselves, to construct an entire universe or lifetime in an abstract visual impact. There is something about it that is raw and vulnerable -- Heidi will leave knots and raw edges exposed -- yet attractive and absorbing in its realness. This was made by a person, completely.
I feel like I've struggled to figure out how to express stories in an abstract way. How would I represent the concept of abandonment - a fear I've carried with me since I was so little - conceptually and visually? I walk around with weight on my shoulders and I think I want to shake it out through my art, but sometimes I just don't know how. I've been wondering about this for a long time, and when I discovered Heidi's work, it spoke to me directly.
Heidi's work and the process of Diary Quilting showed me how to start to translate time, incidents, facts, and figures into visuals I could relate to and feel something about. It also offered ways to let go -- leave knots and raw edges exposed? Don't iron? This was a new way of moving through work that was freeing and confidence-building: just feel, just make, just express. As a workshop group, we talked a lot about how to represent ideas, how to tell stories, how to edit, and how to move forward even in fear or doubt.
The tied quilt above is the piece I worked on during the workshop. It's about 40" square, and represents my work learning to tie knots. Each blue appliqué piece represents an individual knot (and the thread or fabric may suggest something specific about the particular knot).
I think I've already written here about how much I value the teachers I've had the opportunity to learn from and Heidi is yet another who has been really wonderful.
https://www.heidiparkes.com
