In spring and summer and fall I don't have to look for beauty. It surrounds me! New life, greens and pinks and whites and reds and blues. My winter view is totally different and I love it. There are open skies because the trees have lost their leaves. There is a nip to the air that makes me appreciate my warm and cozy house. I don't take things for granted in the winter, and that makes me more aware of each day.
A walk in winter is a gift. Often I am cold and the wind is blowing and things look a bit dreary. The next day the sun shines through the branches and I notice the dried petals of the Oak Leaf Hydrangea. If she can stand it outside then certainly I can.
"Nature looks dead in winter because her life is gathered into her heart. She withers the plant down to the root that she may grow it up again fairer and stronger. She calls her family together within her inmost home to prepare them for being scattered abroad upon the face of the earth." - Hugh Macmillan
Inspired by the red rock canyons of the southwestern deserts this piece has been growing over the past month or so. A canyon wall shows the history of a place - much like the rings inside a tree. Layer upon layer of sediment and rock form over eons. Shaped by wind, rain, snow and ice -- pretty much all of the elements -- these canyons form over time in ways that we can't really witness.
This piece is 8-1/2" x 9". Because of the size I made up three panels, stitching them together. Stitching punchneedle together is pretty easy since the loops tend to disguise the seams. I used regular embroidery floss - plus Caron's Watercolours, Wildflowers and Waterlilies. Waterlilies being very fine silk thread I wanted to use it as a 'filament' between sections.
This wasn't the easiest piece I've ever done but I did enjoy seeing it all come together in my own version of a "Canyon Wall".
"I speak now of that Grand Canyon which lies within each of us. There are pre-Cambrian rocks at the center, the core, and talus from yesterday's fall; marble and granite grown hard from the pressure and heat of heartbreak and passion; crumbling sandstone, layer on layer of sediment, sentiment piled on over a lifetime's experience..." - Amil Quayle
