This piece turned out completely different than my first imaginings, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it.
It’s fascinating how much story is contained in one piece of artwork. For this one, the colors themselves seemed to drive much of the direction.
I purchased a hank of coral 5mm 3ply rope last autumn that I originally planned to pair with my blue floral tshirt yarn to create another rainbow style.
Just recently I was inspired by a simple yet lovely wall hanging pattern from Modern Macrame that gave me a different idea for how I could use these two fibers together.
But being a lover of color and variety, I wanted to add some more accent fibers to this work, so I started going through all my materials and creating a palatte.
I couldn’t resist adding yellow (as usual) and was inspired to split the wall hanging in the middle to create a sun shape. That was far from my original plan, and I didn’t even know if I could pull it off. But sometimes anxiety makes a person do things they wouldn’t normally do!
It was such an experiment, I had little idea what I was doing! And yet somehow it all came together so effortlessly.
As I was finishing up the final details, I was so overcome with love for how it turned out, and felt such a sense of relief. I had been sick for nearly a whole month and I was just getting my strength back when I set out to create this piece. Being that it turned out so lovely, I was crying as I finished it up. I wondered what to name it, and it came to me:
After the Rain.
It is difficult to distinguish between rain and rainbow in this piece, a beautiful reminder of how pain and pleasure can often coexist, how rainbows often show up even while it is still raining. The radiant yellow sun bursts through, as though parting the clouds in half. Among the blue rain are small pink flowers.
As it all came together, I was reminded of the song “Daisy” by Switchfoot, my favorite band as a teenager. The song is so appropriate for my experience, and I played it as I unraveled the fringe.
This entire piece reminds me so much of my first child who died years ago. I had been working through a lot of the grief and trauma of her death for awhile before making this. I had no intention of making this in her memory – nothing was conscious. But once it was finished, it felt like her energy was all over it. The colors and style are so reminiscent of her sweet personality.
There is so much love and joy in this piece of fiber art. It is a testimony to the resiliency of our spirits, to the wondrous miracle of how beauty can emerge from pain.
This wall hanging is available for purchase from my Etsy shop: etsy.com/shop/gracienoon
GRACIENOON 