"Louisville: A Healing Quilt"

Hi Folks, 

I finished “Lightening Storm” but forgot to photograph it before hanging it in the gallery.  For those who are local, it is in “Rustic Gallery” at Ashland Art Works, 291 Oak Street, Ashland.  Take a lunch and go sit by the creek after seeing the art offerings, mine included.  If you haven’t yet discovered the sitting area by the creek, it is one of the sweetest spots in Ashland.   

I promise to get a photo of “Lightening Storm” and post it this week!

In the meantime, I thought you might like to see a piece I started years ago.  I still have a few bits and pieces to add as finishing touches.  It is a healing piece relating to a dark and difficult period in my life, the years between 14 and 17, when I was utterly a fish out of water…almost literally–but that’s another story.  This piece began with a poem and emerged visually over time.  For me, it perfectly expresses my felt state during these years.  Here is the poem, which also makes it’s way across the face of the piece. 

This quilt lacks a center…a central form to draw the eye…this is deliberate…this quilt is metaphorical…it depicts a very unhappy time in my life…

 a time of grays and blacks and browns…little color…no life…

 when I felt like a stick figure…wandering, searching…alone…

down streets that led nowhere…turning corners to other nowhere streets…searching for bridges to something good…finding they only reached another side of pain…only another dead end empty space…

 all that seemed constant was the ticking of clocks…relentlessly…far too slowly…marking the time until I could leave…run away…escape…hoping endlessly this might mean new life…

New life…is like lightening…bright, stark, brilliant, blinding…deafening, terrifying…coming with storm…rending the new from the old…

 lightening breaks apart the clouds…bringing new birth…color…light…after the storm…

 Kali’s destruction…necessary…though terrifying…for new birth…

 Music was my one light…it softened the pain and gave me strength…gave structure to my desolation…as I poured my emotions over the keys…

 Music was the new life I hoped for…the only place where color still lived…along with hope…and the possibility of love.

Stephanie K. Nead

Poem for "Louisville: A Healing Quilt""Lonely feet walking..."