I spent a number of hours this weekend staring closely into this image of water.

Water is filled with mystery. Stand by moving water and look down; what lives beneath? What invisible life forms fill it?

It seems to have almost magical powers to refresh and soother the soul. Imagine a walk on the beach. Or sitting on a warm rock next to flowing water.

I felt some of that power and mystery in the simple act of stitching the surface of this photo, which I had transferred to fabric. Instead of imposing a quilting pattern onto the photo, I wanted to loosely trace the shapes of the lights and the darks that are there in the water. That led me to sweeping back and forth runs of the sewing machine, and also concentric shapes in the eddies. It felt like tracing water itself.

As an artmaker, the power of the image of water is important and powerful. It is not a symbol I need to create or ascribe characteristics to. It brings its own wealth of meaning and experiences to any surface in which it is included.

Water will connote different thing to different people. Each person who looks at the images of water in my works will bring their own emotional reactions to water to their experience of the artwork.

(Challenge to artmakers: think of other images and symbols that will bring meaning in a similar way to your work.)

I found a few other works of mine that incorporate different images of water. You might enjoy taking a look at these on my website:

Sometimes You Can’ See In. (I placed the water inside the panes of windows) HERE

Float Away in Dreams (A house in a dream-like setting of water) HERE

Adrift  (The quilt surface is filled with an abstract, patterned body of water)   HERE

How She Got There  (A little girl is silhouetted by a stormy beach and ocean)  HERE

Finally, I am thinking of the way water in movement can also connote the passage of time and events. A single body of water may be witness to generaions of people and events. I was thinking of that in the following poem.

The River

The strip of sand
not wide enough to call a beach
beside the river
takes onto itself lapping water
that moves as the tide moves
as the moon and sun
go about their celestial tasks
or as a boat creates a wake
so that standing there
with feet in the water
looking down through the green
through the light-filled darting creatures
I see my own naked feet in sand
half-covered and know
my mother  my sister
the women I see in shops
have also stood in water
looked down
felt that same water
washing over them
as we stood
and were cooled
and did not sink

And did not drown.

For all the artmakers: Happy creating
For all the art lovers: Happy appreciating 

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

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