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| "Dancer" 2015 |
"The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves." -Terry Tempest Williams
I made "Dancer" using both fill and line stitch on a design that was transferred onto the fabric by the carbon paper method. The central figure is directly influenced by the image, shown below, from a painted fresco mural in the Quseir Amra castle in Jordan (early 8th century).
In the mural the female figure is topless and she holds up a bowl. I added a full dress for design reasons and changed the bowl into a walrus. The background is a modified Islamic geometric pattern.
The "Dancer" In this piece represents the Great Mother archetype, rescuing a drowning walrus. I used the infinity symbol on the border, which mirrors the shape of the figure and the belt design, and refers to the divine mystery that surrounds and underlies the dream of the world.
Link to World Heritage Conservation about Quseir Amra
Link to information about the Pacific Walrus endangered status
http://www.endangered.org/animal/pacific-walrus/