Statement
During the past summer-fall months of 2021 and 2022, I’ve worked on my new mosaic textiles (quilt) series inspired by Stevie Wonder’s album Innervisions. This album represents the 16th studio album in his illustrious career. He played all the instruments on 6 out of the 9 tracks. Innvervision covers a range of societal issues such as drugs, racism and inequality. Similarly this series is called Tales from the Innervision and covers a variety of topics dealing with the realization of Self.
Tales from the Innervision Series is technically the 1st truly personal quilt series that I’ve completed. Each piece represents a stage in life’s journey – 1-2) finding one’s self, 3) rising above the insignificant, 4) traveling through life’s experiences and 5) elevating to the next phase in one’s humanness. While humans are infinitely diverse in nature, the journey through this life is what is common to all.
Tales from the Innervision is the narrative that all human beings tell.
Process
Construction
The quilts in Tales from the Innervision were each created using a familiar, favorite construction technique with mosaic quilting. Many batik, hand-dyed and commercial fabrics were selected into color families. Each improvised piece was cut out from a fusible interfacing. Compared to traditional quilt-making, this fusible interfacing acts as the “batting” layer in the sandwich. The bottom layer consists of rectangular-cut mosaic pieces of fabric. Attention was taken to leave the edges raw and overlayed. The bottom layer on each piece is black, acrylic felt cloth.
Stitching
Contour stitching on each piece added to the overlaying effect of the raw-edged mosaic pieces of fabric. Except for the 2nd piece, Searching for Inner Code (2)-which has a contrasting white thread, thread color choices were chosen to purposefully blend into the color family of the piece. For instance, in Crossing Roads, brown threads were used in the brown fabric “road crossings” while the rest of the thread was in orange to blend in with the varying yellow-gold-orange fabrics.
Mosaic designing like painting
Each mosaic piece in this series was designed in a spontaneous manner much like painting on a blank canvas. This improvisation allowed me the freedom to remain close to the deepest intent of this series and not get bogged down with the planning often involved in quilt-making.
Quilts
The 1st and 2nd work in the Tales from the Innervision quilt series, Searching for Inner Code represents the inner work that every person goes through to discover their own “code”. Notice that in the 1st one, the thread is less pronounced and blends into the “coded” background. In the 2nd one, the thread is more pronounced as you begin to discover the essence of who you are.
The 3rd work in the Tales from the Innervision quilt series, Seeing My Way Out of Blue represents the eventual transformation of a human being out of the muck and mire of life’s visceral levels into a deeper, psychic realm of existence.
The 4th work in the Tales from the Innervision quilt series, Crossing Roads is the personal discovery of the terrain of life. Like traveling over different terrains, life’s journey consists of crossing many roads that are full of turns, ups, downs, stops, starts, rough patches and smooth ones.
The 5th work in the Tales from the Innervision quilt series, Leveling Up represents the ascension in one’s personal life. Leveling up is the elevation to reach the next chapter, next stage, next phase, next plateau in one’s existence. This is a personal exercise for each human being and means something different to each one.
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