In The Arms of Our Mothers

Stained Glass, 75cm × 100cm

A patchwork quilt as a gift, from myself to my mother, and to her mother; not sewn together from scraps of cloth, a glass quilt woven of memory and photograph, an homage to the quilt as a physical manifestation of the emotional labour of a mother in the care of her family; an expression of the love that exists between women in a family. The inheritable object is made with reverence for those in the maternal line. The gift receiver becomes the gift giver, and the gift creator; investing time to repay the labour of love in the wake of death. The soft opacity of the textile is replaced by the clear hardness of glass; the physical comforting warmth of a person is replaced by the intangible coldness of memory. Like a memory the cyanotyped images fade in and out of a watery obscurity; images of myself, my mother and grandmother are blurred and illegible as memories blur across the passage of time. The perception of time folds; three girlhoods presented side by side.