I made “Maelstrom” for a 2009 exhibition with fellow members of a small group of Australian and New Zealand group of art quilters. Themed ” A Change in The Weather” the works on global climate change opened in Wellington NZ in June 2009, and travelled to Christchurch NZ. for showing there, but the collection was never organised into a showing in Australia, which was a shame, and the quilts were returned to us.
I’ve always loved this piece, even though it always felt an awkward shape we had to make our pieces to, determined by some spatial limitation available to that number of wall quilts in the gallery that agreed to hold our show. So in the next few days I’m going to re-size it to something like 50cm x 70cm, mount it on a white canvas stretcher, and include it in my upcoming January 2026 exhibition.
My inspiration was the cartographic symbol used by weather forecasters to represent the location and progress of those most violent storms we know as cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes in the regions of Oceania, Asia and the Americas. The Earth is represented by the very dark green base fabric. The huge variety of colours translates into the gathering swirl of information, problems and expert opinions on what needs to be done to help the world deal with and adapt to the changes in climate now taking place at an accelerating rate. Red is a colour warning of danger, hence my choice for the hand quilted grid pattern. Interestingly, this statement written in 2009 could have been written today; because according to reports from the recently concluded COP30, real change has been slow on climate zone issues.
I personally love things mounted on white or painted stretchers without further framing, but with a standard size, a new owner has the option to add a custom of pre-made frame that goes with their particular decor style, or that matches a colour in their own couch, so to speak 🙂
