Big Tree

Description

Big Tree was commissioned in 2008, after my first solo show, and it is the largest piece I’ve made, about 7½ feet tall, and 5’3″ wide. The couple who commissioned it had a room which was about nine feet tall on the left, and twice that high on the right, following the slope of the roof, with a small fireplace in the middle. The wall was painted pottery red, and they needed something to fill the space. They had seen my show, contacted me, and I had my first commission!

I selected various home décor fabrics, because of their generally larger patterns, mostly in browns but pulling in a couple of reds to connect with the background of the red wall. Each piece was edged with scraps of dupioni silk, and mounted on a piece of foam core, with batting to give depth, then I arranged all the pieces and overlapped them to give further depth, and finally I stitched them to each other. A lacy fabric filled in gaps which allowed the wall’s color to show through. The trunk was made separately, out of dupioni silk with a nice texture to it.

I discovered, however, when it came time to install it, that the top part simply would not fit in my car, because the back seats hooked into a part that restricted the space too much. My client then came over with her van and took the top part, and the trunk went into my trunk, and off it went!

It was up for just about four years, when I got a call from her, saying that she had redecorated the room, and with a TV and shelves on that wall, she no longer had a place for it; would I like it back?

So this is the tree that has now come home to me.