“Maelstrom” was my contribution to a 2009 exhibition ” A Change in The Weather” by members of a small group of Australian-New Zealand group of art quilters. The exhibition of original quilted textiles with a theme of global climate change, opened in Wellington NZ in June 2009, and travelled to Christchurch NZ before crossing to Australia where it was seen in several places after that.
My inspiration was the cartographic symbol used by weather forecasters to represent on maps the location and progress of the most violent storms – cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes in their relevant 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, suggesting change has been slow around the issue of climate change, according to reports from the recently concluded COP30 conference.
I’ve always loved this piece, even though I always felt it was an awkward shape we all had to make our pieces to, but think that was because some limitation of the display area available to that number of wall quilts in the gallery with which our organiser arranged the show. So in the next few days I’m going to re-size it to 50cm x 50cm, and mount it on a white canvas stretcher, and include it in my upcoming January 2026 exhibition. 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 choose a frame that goes with their particular decor style or that matches a colour in their own couch, so to speak 🙂
I love this quilt, it certainly is beautiful and also evokes turbulent weather.
JJ
Thankyou JJ – since this is purpose-made and does not have to go through a juried stage, I think it OK to post the completed work now – many of my readers will never get to see it in New Zealand or where ever it may go after that.