Nomad in the Desert

The inspiration for my challenge piece has been an exploration of concrete and transient lines.  The design is based on a photo of my brother sitting at an outdoor café in Aqaba, Jordan.


I love the crisp lines of stone architecture contrasted with the organic shape of a person sitting on a soft couch.  The intense sun creates sharp shadows at this time of day, adding new shapes and colors every hour. 


The title “Nomad” refers to the nickname I have for my brother Patrick.  Born to travel, he never lives in one place for more than a few years.  Although he is constantly venturing into unfamiliar territory and adjusting to new cultures, customs and languages, he has the uncanny ability to remain completely true to himself.  He’s like a shadow gliding easily over the architecture, becoming part of the scene but only temporarily.

Seven Sisters

I started with ‘horizon’.  I didn’t get too much farther in my thinking with ‘line’.  As I began thinking about horizon, with ‘lines’ in the back of my brain, I began looking at the heavens.  In my research the words Astronomical horizon had captured my imagination.

I’ve always been intrigued with instances of groups of people, quite separate geographically and culturally, coming to very similar places in their descriptions of their environment, their explanations of the outside world and their mythologies.  While I was looking heavenward metaphorically, I remembered that many peoples have similar stories of the spirits and deities that reside in the heavens.

Pleiades, for example, is know as “seven sisters” to Australian Aboriginal communities and the Nez Perce of North America, “daughters of the night” to the Berber, and “seven sisters-in-law and a brother-in-law” for the Ben Raji of Nepal.

We are all similarly hard-wired with a need to survive.  To survive we must understand our environment and, sometimes, that means we impose meaning on natural phenomena.

Across the world peoples have drawn imaginary lines in the sky, describing creation tales of morality and explanations for earthly people, and, of course, those that navigate the globe.  

Seven Sisters: 18”x24” artist dyed, painted and stitched

A Way Beyond

When I visited Zion National Park in Utah, USA I was inspired by the towering mountains and cliffs of rock, reaching from the canyon floor into the sky. I took many photos of the intersections of the peaks and was intrigued by the meeting point, the line they created. These images were perfect to revisit for this challenge.
I see A Way Beyond as a metaphor for Life's journey which is not always smooth. We encounter junctions, dead ends and blockages along the way. If we can keep our focus on what lies beyond, we can overcome the difficulties and find a way through to our future.

Materials- hand dyed fabric, printer ready photo sheets, wadding, oil paint sticks, thread, commercial fabric backing.
Machine pieced and quilted.

Finding Lines

Previous challenges inspired a lot of thought; my mind raced with ideas and possibilities.  But it was difficult for me to interpret those ideas into a concrete design.  This time, I was more in my “comfort zone”.  Horizons, lines, boundaries – these concepts are much easier to imagine visually.

I began by exploring lines that are “real” in that they exist independently of ourselves – blades of grass, the line formed by two planes intersecting (like 2 walls meeting in a corner), stripes on a tiger, the mast of a sailing ship.

Other lines are visibly obvious - we can see them, draw them, photograph them and name them… but they do not represent an actual concrete object. They appear under specific conditions and are influenced by the relationship of objects.  They are constantly moving or changing. The horizon changes according to our location and the objects in our field of view.  Shadows change according to the time of day and weather conditions.

I thought about other lines that are neither visible nor “real” in the concrete sense, but have a great affect on people’s lives, like time zones or boundaries between countries.

Happily, I was able to get started on my design pretty early in this challenge.  As I considered these different ideas, pictures were forming in my mind.  I mentioned my “comfort zone” – how I usually put together a composition. I try to create a believable sense of depth by playing with light and shadow, and I love to explore the effects of light bounced off different surfaces.

This challenge allowed me to play around in my favorite “sandbox”.  I’m excited to share my results and to see all the challenge designs next week!

My friend Gale pointed out that you can always look at the horizon, but you can never get there.  That thought really ties into the way I feel about my work- every piece is a new journey, full of promise and *sometimes* fulfillment, but it ends up as a gateway to something else.


I love this quote by Kandinsky:

"An empty canvas, apparently really empty, that says nothing and is without significance. Almost dull, in fact. In reality, however, [it's] crammed with thousands of undertone tensions and [is] full of expectancy. Slightly apprehensive lest it should be outraged ... It can contain anything but cannot sustain everything ... An empty canvas is a living wonder -- far lovelier than certain pictures."

To me, every project is a journey,which leads not to a destination, but to further horizons - the act of creating itself is as integral to me as breathing.


It's great that the next SAQA conference has Expanding Horizons as the theme.  We meet, share thoughts and ideas, and come away with a wider word view and a new appreciation of things that are possible.


Finally, I'd like to close with a quote by the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Hughes Galeano-


“Utopia lies at the horizon.
When I draw nearer by two steps,
it retreats two steps.
If I proceed ten steps forward, it
swiftly slips ten steps ahead.
No matter how far I go, I can never reach it.
What, then, is the purpose of utopia?
It is to cause us to advance.”
― Eduardo Hughes Galeano


********what's out there for all of us?  Am looking forward to the results of this exquisite challenge !***********