We've had some chilly evenings here in Boulder, and some leaves are already beginning to change. It seems that Fall may arrive early this year, and the changing of the seasons always makes me think of the opposite seasons that are changing now Down Under, and all across the Southern Hemisphere. There, our Aussie, Kiwi, South American and African friends are finishing up the Winter season and preparing for Spring.
A couple years ago I traveled to Australia for the first time, and it was a powerful visual experience. I started with the quilt festival in Melbourne, then rode up the coast on the Great Ocean Road.
The colors of the quilts shifted me into a different gear right away, and by the time I arrived at Cape Otway to photograph the Koalas in the Gum Trees (Eucalyptus), I was as wide-eyed and curious as a child. Seeing a Mob of Roos taking over a golf course at dusk, and a flock of wild Cockatoos take over a beach town, had shown me that anything was possible there.
The Aboriginal art was powerful and had a pulsing visual effect on me. However I don't think you need to live in, or travel to Australia to appreciate Koalas and Aboriginal paintings. I began to think about dots in a different way too – not just as the pleasant retro polka dots we like to use here – but as a shimmering expression of Light and Dark.
Here we have a collage of Australian-themed fabrics, built around a photo of a little Koala fellow from my trip there. Yes we think of Kangaroos when we think of Australia, but there are also the Emus, Platypus, Dingo, Wallaby, Bandicoot, Echidna, and the rich ocean life of the Great Barrier Reef.
As we approach the Spring and Fall Equinoxes in the North and South Hemispheres in a few weeks, I imagine a Square Dance as our North steps into Fall, and you in the South move into Spring, and the Earth does a Do-Si-Do into yet another shifting season, encouraging us to let go of one season as we prepare a place in our schedule, our life, our heart and our sewing studios…for another season of quilting.
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I like the collage and the imagery of the Earth doing a Do-Si-Doh very much. Thank you for all the photos and videos you post to enhance our experience of equilter.