01.11.07
Butterflies and Guns
As I sit here in this chilly old New England home that has been around much longer than I, my thoughts turn to imagery, specifically that of butterflies and guns. They are connected, you know.
The butterfly has long symbolized the human soul and eternity, across time, and across cultures. Butterflies have been interpreted both realistically and abstractly in art, sometimes as a solid shape, just suggestive of the butterfly form.
We love butterflies. Even to think of them, those beautiful and free wonders, lifts our spirits. And so it was during the Era of the Great Depression and during World War II. Many a woman embroidered, drew, painted, stenciled, or appliquéd a butterfly. Sometimes, she made a one layer summer spreads or cotton (un-woven) coverlets with repeat butterfly motifs. Other times, she made a quilt.
I have never seen a butterfly quilt that I did not appreciate. The diverse ways in which butterflies have been depicted is amazing. Many of my site files, you may have noticed, feature a photo, or two, of butterfly items.
While some women may prefer to embroider soldiers with guns, in Redwork, as was the case of one (possibly German) piece that was featured in my book, Redwork Embroidery and Needlework Traditions in Europe and America, other women prefer to look on the brighter side of things, and create butterflies with their stitches, in whatever way they conceive them to be. Butterflies, in their wanton freedom as they tilt toward the skies, help us to escape the reality of guns and what they do to living people.
Tonight, there will be yet another speech on television, one that I do not really want to hear. In this time of continued war and the proposal of sending yet more of our young people into harm’s way, I shudder, and then I wish that I had a Butterfly Quilt in progress.
Just think what a huge quilt we could make, if quilters all created only one six inch, finished size, butterfly block, and we sewed the quilt altogether. I can bet that we could make a quilt that would have enough room to write the name of each of the more than three thousand American soldiers lost in the war. What a wild idea!
What if even just people who have lost a loved one made a block with that person’s name? Wow! we would still end up with a very large quilt.
I don’t know where I’m going with this. It is a totally half-baked idea. Sometimes, I just wish that there was a way to honor the entire group of soldiers who have so willingly and bravely gone into battle and lost their very lives. Sometimes, I think that we need reminders of beauty, like images of butterflies, so that we can learn to focus on our creative energies in times of political turbulence and distress.
Just thinking overtime…as usual
Pat
