A Singing Boat
Dear Friend and Fellow Maker,
Many years ago, a friend of mine died too early from cancer. I so wished that I could have been with her in her final moments, singing favorite hymns to her as she crossed over to that Beautiful Land. I wrote a short poem and stitched it into an embroidered piece, as I was enamored with the mediums of fabric and stitch at that time, about ten years ago.1
I’d like to go in a singing boat
carried along by voices that float…
and harmonies pure ringing me home
to that distant shore. No more to roam.
-jpe
Talitha Koum. Cotton Warp. Hand spun yarns. 8” x 7”.
I have now completed the weaving of a fourth small tapestry. I consider this tapestry to be an addendum to the triptych titled Her Sacred Rite of Passage. As I wove the previous three tapestries, it occurred to me that the swirls in the ocean could very well be woven as musical notes suggesting that the music of the spheres swirls around even as one is pulled onto the shore of the Promised Land. I love the idea behind this tapestry and am pleased with how the colors and imagery for this final work turned out.
The title of this tapestry is Talitha Koum, which is an Aramaic phrase Christ spoke as he healed Jairus’ daughter and raised her up from where she lay dying.2 I have often imagined this to be our own future experience as we are welcomed into heaven. The endearing term resoundingly whispers of His love for his children, and certainly my mom is one of them! Here she is guided to shore wrapped in a white robe with her overalls underneath. How tenderly He cares for us, even in our dying/rising to Life.
I’ve loved weaving water in such a way as to depict each image of the four tapestries all on this one loom. This tapestry needed a much lighter value of waters and it is such a joy to pick out hand spun yarns for the job!
As I’ve been weaving and thereby spending a fair amount of time contemplating death and a vision of mom’s passage to the beyond, there has been quite a bit of life happening in our family. Our fourth grandchild was born a little over a week ago, the first boy amongst the four. I also visited with my mom in her memory care residence and I find myself once again, trying to hold both the beginning and the ending of life while I stand somewhere beyond the middle of it.
With this fourth tapestry finished, I can remove all four from the loom to do the finishing work and to begin something new. I am planning to return to weaving another Cat & Mouse drawing I made a couple of years ago, but this will require I learn how to create a continuous warp on my loom. I know the “how” of it. I just haven’t ever done it. Wish me luck!
In the meantime, I am awaiting Proof copies of my newest children’s picture book titled Genevieve and the One Thing! I can’t wait to see it in actual book form rather than illustrated sketchbook pages of paper and a digital compilation. I may need to make changes to the interior or to the cover once I have an actual copy in my hands, but I hope that the final publication day is in the very near future! I can’t wait to tell you all about it!!
Thank you once again for your time in reading The Golden Thread! I am so glad you are here!
With gratitude,
Jennifer
Here is that embroidered fabric collage. I really enjoy rough edge appliqué, choosing to leave frayed edges and layering fabrics of varying textures to stitch through. Many embroidered works lay quietly in a Tupperware bin and it is lovely to visit them every now and then. I talked with a friend who loves counted cross-stitch and who makes them one after the other and then places them in a drawer. Only a few of them are framed or given. I loved how she said that it didn’t matter what would be done with them, if anything. The important part is the process, to be continually making. I heartily agree!
Mark 5:41