a series of blue quilts as posters for beyondblue
artist: Pam Bennett
BLACK HOLES AND BLACK CLOUDS
I remembered after Baby Blues, the down times of a new mother. I suffered clusters of deep holes of sadness, living under a big dark cloud. Maybe it was the weight of motherhood or a difficult baby, demanding and crying all the time. But whatever, they were dark days of deep holes of blackness that swirled on into a hole so deep you felt you would never get out. But like all things, there were small glimmers of light that pierced the darkness and led the way out. Fortunately there is a world of sweetness outside the black cloud of darkness and deep holes of depression. Hopefully all us can find it.
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artist: Moira Bevan
STORM DEPRESSION
My metaphor for depression is a storm at sea where all you can do is hold on and live through the experience. The dark green of a tropical storm are lightened by the hope the sunshine brings.
Hand dyed and airbrushed cotton fabric wool/polyester batting. Quilted
with ‘Storm at Sea Pattern’.
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artist: Aukje Boonstra
THE SPIRAL
When in the blue spiral of depression
Sometimes you can't see your way out
But even on the darkest day
There are some sparkles
Sometimes it lights up a little
Then it goes dark again
The one day
Things just seem a little brighter
Then you slowly rise out of the spiral
Blue changes into green
Which is the colour of new beginnings
New beginnings
Colours everywhere
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artist: Jill Cartwright
OUT OF MIND, OUT OF SIGHT
Mental illness is distressing for ill and well, and this piece seems to express how I feel after working on the theme of depression for a year.
For several months I embroidered a piece of wave patterned fabric that I dubbed ‘the herringbone sea’- later discarded when I cut an experimental hole in the other strangely drab fabric. It looked so compelling, it became the work. No quilted comfort, just raw edges and running stitch holding the pieces together.
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artist: Jill Cartwright
POCKETS OF DEPRESSION
For my mother- the slow spiral into unhappiness-here I have given her the hope of the silver lining she couldn’t find.
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artist: Wyn Foley
FRAGILE HOLD
In this piece, slashed pieces show breakdown, knotted stitches show the effort of holding oneself together - the sheer overlay represents the veil between oneself and life.
The machined stitching shows the tenuous, fragile hold between complete breakdown and holding on desperately.
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artist: Vanda Jackson
THE ANGEL WHO QUILTS THE BLUES
Here is an angel, messenger of light and hope. Empathetic with those who need her most, she keeps her richness within restraint, her embroidered gown without exuberance. She lives in the colour of those she comes to. She brings her aura of blues with her, the blues of the night skies and the green blues of growing trees and deep constant oceans. And so she will not dazzle those she visits, her golden face and hair are hidden by a hood and her brilliant wings are covered by her cloak. She cannot prevent some light escaping around her.
At her back are weeping trees and flowers and rain on lakes; beyond the blue aura ahead of her she suggests possibilities - a lighted house, a place of renewed faith and appreciation of a living growing world.
She carries a staff to lend to those on a rough path so they can remain steady among the rocks on the way, and her lantern shines on the path just ahead and shows that rocks have their own beauty and place. Her feet are sturdily shod to show that this path can be walked on but the walker needs protection.
Her names are many - those she visits must find it for themselves - but for general use her name is Sensua, the name of an old but newly discovered goddess, the messenger of wisdom, crafts, healing and springs.
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artist: Vanda Jackson
LIGHT IN THE DEPTH
Waking to dark blue, not black, but a pervading dark blue;
I walk with the blue, images and words rise from somewhere just below the surface where they form circles which go nowhere, random paths of thought, and a pointer to a place just below the surface where the blue is paler and some light is being shed,
I sit with the images and words and go down to another layer where more light falls; there is definition along blurred edges. Deeper still there is more light and a different clarification; I sea the reason that the words and images have depressed me. It is exactly that - they have depressed me, pressed me down. I have been repressed, suppressed, bound by limits other than those I choose to impose upon myself, even those at times. I feel belittled, or to use the latest cliché, disempowered.
The light is almost full now. All that I have to do is to understand and forgive, and not unto seven times but unto seventy times seven. I am not a natural confronter of others, it feels wrong, but uncomfortable as it may be, I must confront myself - and for the rest forgive others for perceived oppression and myself for stupidity and ungenerosity of spirit.
And there, at the depth of my quilt, is gold and a thread running from it to the outer dark blue world. Hope is always there and a larger truth than those that turned my world blue. I am restored.
Reverse appliqué was my first thought when asked to Quilt the Blues, I wondered why. In this technique a layer is cut away to reveal another below it. In some traditions there are as many as five layers. I see it reflects my way of dealing with the blues.
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artist: Suzie Barton Johnson
JIGSAW PUZZLE DEDICATED TO NETTY
"If you can’t find the piece
take a look at the whole
or you won’t find the peace
that’s missing from your soul"
Jeanette Lewis (Netty)
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artist: Shirley Johnson
BLUE DUCKS
Blue duck "anything which does not come up to expectations: a dud a write off" - from A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms (G.A. Wilkes 1978)
Start stop get side tracked and lose interest
Off at a tangent
Out of focus
With half baked ideas
Ignore friends and drift away
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artist: Jennifer Line
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
A racing brain, pushing against the dead weight of a glass ceiling, with short bursts of light and laughter, creativity and accomplishment, fuelled by a restless energy and misdirected anger.
A life best taken day by day, with comforting routines and understanding friends.
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artist: Emma Methorst
HIDING
Nothing wrong with it per se. It’s just the insidiousness hideousness of it all.
It puts you on a pedestal of barbed razor wire, balancing precariously on an orb of obsidian, shiny and beautiful in its deadliness.
It exists in tangents-in two places in time. You can see it and you can feel it beating in your chest.
It devours you whole, your heart and soul. You become this thing that you would ordinarily wish to circumnavigate.
And in my heart, I never wanted to be there anyway.
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artist: Di Murdoch
QUILTING AWAY THE BLUES . . . in blue
Kris Kristofferson’s "Just the other side of Nowhere" in the background.
Some scraps of blue fabric and a selection of blue threads. Long pause for contemplation of the background transcription of the Kristofferson song - in truth a type of paralysis.
Spontaneity requires such effort.
But once one gets going, the pleasure of colour, rhythm of the machine and the scope for play and experimentation take over. The impetus for the enterprise is transformed into a "quilt" in blue, - pockets of order and pattern interaction, areas of random scribble and disorganization; dark giving way to light, even a silver lining!!
It doesn’t flow smoothly - some days are better than others and the end result reflects the journey.
Nevertheless, there is a "blue quilt" to show for it, and more importantly the pleasure of production.
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artist: Maryanne Whitty
LIVING WITH DEPRESSION
Light blue circles
I put on a happy face,
so easy to fool people.
We only see what they want to see.
Dark blue circles
I’m dying inside.
Despair unhappiness,
Yellow circles
Then a kindness by strangers.
The hand of God at work.
Two toned blue circles
I make a choice and am given the strength.
Again the hand of God.
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