The Yin Yang of Creativity

Sweet Pea ©2006 Ayn Hanna, 60"x45", (cotton fabrics, cotton batting, cotton threads)

 Completion

My first completed art work of 2012 happens to also be my second ever bed quilt (queen size).  My first one was “Sweet Pea” (pictured above), a baby quilt for my friend Ginny’s boy, Ford.  I finished stitching the binding on that quilt on the plane, en route to deliver it to baby Ford.

Down the Rabbit Hole (below) is the largest textile piece I’ve made to date.  I started it back in 2009, during a rough spot I was going through.  Designing this quilt top was a healing meditative act.

Down the Rabbit Hole ©2012 Ayn Hanna & Gwen Hatchette (88"x70") Cotton fabrics, inkjet printed fabric, cotton batting, cotton threads)

It was a major color study and I was thankful to have it – I spent many hours at the design wall in the wee small hours of the night, thoughtfully rearranging squares of color until it felt just right.   I also incorporated a few inkjet-printed “rabbits” scattered across the surface all headed for “the exit” on the bottom right.

After piecing it all together and adding the border fabrics, this top sat unfinished in my studio for a couple years.  The act of making the top had fulfilled my purpose, so I needed some other good reason to finish it.

On a recent visit to my studio, my friend Gwen Hatchette came up with the idea of us collaborating on some work – she loves to quilt pieces on her long arm.  It happened that I had the perfect collaboration piece ready and waiting.  I handed her this quilt top and a backing fabric I had pieced for it and off she went to her studio.

Down the Rabbit Hole (detail) ©2012 Ayn Hanna & Gwen Hatchette

A Good Reason:  Giving to the Community

Gwen’s amazing quilting makes this quilt sing.  She used several colors of thread and stitched many motifs across the surface.  It was a great collaboration for us, made more special by the fact that we will be donating this quilt to a wonderful local non-profit agency.

We’re donating this (Barbara C, are you sitting down?) to ChildSafe, an organization which provides therapy to victims of sexual abuse.  We hope this quilt will bring lots of bids at their annual art auction this summer.

Life, love, energy – there’s so much embedded emotion in this quilt.  It is beauty initiated from pain, a teacher in itself, brought fully to fruition by the combined work of friends.  And now, it will contribute to helping out a good cause, and hopefully bringing some warmth and joy to its new owners.