A Mind of Winter

A Mind of Winter

This small art quilt (12” x 12”) is my submission for the Studio Art Quilt Associates auction, which starts online in September. All proceeds go to SAQA, which works to promote the art quilt. SAQA supports what I do, so I like to reciprocate!

The small work is made of layered, sheer fabrics, including hand-dyed silk organzas and lace scraps from a wedding dress, layered on felt and commercial cotton fabric and machine stitched. The title comes from a Wallace Stevens poem, The Snowman. I think about the opening line of the poem–One must have a mind of winter–often as temperatures get into the 100s here at home. I grew up in Michigan, where winters are long, and I wonder about the Nothing that is not there, and the nothing that is. Makes you stop and think, doesn’t it?

I am considering making a larger version, so perhaps I will call this Mind of Winter I.

A Mind of Winter small art quilt — “A Mind of Winter” 12” x 12” 2016.

Below is the complete text of the poem.

The Snowman

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Mary Vaneecke

Artist, Author, Founder of The Mourning Project

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