That's when I was first inspired to create a piece of art about the interconnections of the themes of home, the Tibetans in exile, and the Wizard of Oz. It took five years to develop ideas and collect the materials. This kind of complex fiber art requires assembling a wide variety of fabric, notions, and doodads. Laying out a palette of several hundred different fabrics requires a huge amount of space, so I while I worked with concepts and sketches during the planning stages, I wasn't able to start on the actual artwork until I had a stable studio of my own.
I was housesitting in that triple-art-studio-house when I first saw the Dalai Lama in person. I had always wanted to attend one of his events, and the date of his event in Long Beach, CA, happened to be the anniversary of my husband's death over 25 years earlier. Attending a spiritual function seemed like an appropriate way to honor the event that had redirected so much of my life. I remembered to bring my camera, but discovered that I wasn't allowed to take it inside, so I did a sketch to capture the essence of my experience.
Not long after, I returned to the East Coast.
When I signed a lease and finally had a home and studio of my own again, the assortment of fabrics and embellishments that I had collected was excavated, and in 2012 I slowly started developing the art quilt in my new studio. It was completed in Feb. 2014, moments before being delivered to its first exhibition, where it received a blue ribbon. Later, I discovered that 2014 was also the 75th anniversary of the release of the movie, The Wizard of Oz.
"No Place Like Om" is designed to inspire a viewer's adventure with her own inner questions, such as:
What is home? What does the concept mean to me?
Is it an inalienable right to have a house? To have a home?
Does being in a stable living situation do more to help or prevent us from really knowing what home is?
Which is more important -- safety? Or freedom and adventure? And how do they relate to "home"?
How do I best connect with my joy?
While the Tibetans have lost their outer home, perhaps their situation invites us all to ponder what the deeper journey home really is. No matter how disconnected we may become to an outer, worldly home, when we follow the journey of love and joy, we can always find the home and the Om within.
"No Place Like Om" will be on exhibit at the Sacred Threads 2015 exhibition, from July 10 - 26, 11:00 am - 5:00 pm. (Sunday 1:00 - 4:00 pm.) Meet the Artists Reception: July 11, 1:00 - 4:00 pm. Location: Floris United Methodist Church, 13600 Frying Pan Road; Herndon, VA 20171.
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