Those of you who follow my posts probably wonder where I’ve been all month long. Well, I’ve been “under fire,” under the “Fire In The Sky “(above), an art quilt that I finally completed for submission to an international exhibition being sponsored by the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA). The deadline for entry was set for the end of this month which, given everything else that has been going on in my life lately, became yet another major source of stress and anxiety.

     As a fabric artist and active member of SAQA, I am not new to the rigors of exhibiting art and entering juried competitions. Since 2017 when I started submitting my work, I have had eight of my art quilts exhibited in 17 different venues, and have even had solo representation in a small gallery show. I am especially proud that my most favorite work, “A Texas Oasis” depicting a Texas Dairy Queen, was acquired by and is now part of the permanent art collection of Incarnate Word University here is San Antonio. (See journal post “A Texas Oasis” dated May 20, 2020.)

     I recount this history not to brag, because my small successes pale in comparison to those of most of my fellow SAQA members, but to illustrate that competitions and deadlines are not new to me. Nor is rejection. (Remember, I’ve been a freelance writer for years.) But so far, my art quilts have only been juried into regional and national shows; I have not yet had any piece accepted into a “global” exhibition. “Fire In The Sky” will be my third try. This particular art quilt is the third iteration of my original design featuring a pump jack, and this final work is the third re-do of that third design. Maybe good luck comes in threes?

     This whole pump jack idea began early last year when I saw a photo of a working well in a North Texas oil field owned by someone I know. I asked for permission to have the photo blown up and then created a full scale pattern from that. And then it sat, while I recuperated from Covid, while we did some house repairs, while we had company, while we fought to save our lawn and garden in a severe drought … As they say, “life gets in the way.” I wandered in and out of my studio, picked up the pattern now and then, made some changes, and thought about it all while I cooked and cleaned and worried about other things. 

     Late last year I saw the call for entries for this SAQA global exhibition called “Fire.” That’s when I decided to ditch all the pick-up trucks and drilling details of the oil field photo design and “relocate” the pump jack to a prettier landscape in front of a brilliant Texas sunset. I started to redraw and resize and research those fiery skies. I began digging through my fabric stash thinking about how to do justice to a magnificent sunset in cloth. But then, due to some unexpected, and unwelcome, events, I got sidetracked again. Art cannot be created without full concentration and uninterrupted blocks of time, and I had neither. 

     By early this year, I had adapted to a new set of circumstances with different demands on my time. Once again, I would drift into the studio when I could and tweak my design and experiment with a technique I wanted to use.  I had taken a class years ago from Karen Eckmeier ( “Layered Landscapes” www.quilted-lizard.com) that I hoped would give texture to the overall background of earth and sky. I started with the foreground and, while it was unwieldy and difficult at first (because my landscape was much larger than the ones usually done with Eckmeier’s basic technique), it did eventually work. Okay. But once I started working from the horizon up into the sky, I got stymied again; I just couldn’t figure it out and it became a frustrating disaster. 

     As luck would have it (if “luck” is the appropriate word), I drove down to Victoria in late June to attend a Mass for my Mother and to visit the cemetery. On the way down on U.S 87, I drove through fracking country, as I have a hundred times. The once oil-boom capital of South Texas, a mere outpost in the middle of nowhere, was now a fully functioning, fully established oil field with storage tanks and transfer stations and flare stacks burning off the gas from working wells. Ah ha!  And there it was  — the fire! And that’s how the flares, not the sunset, became the focus of the “Fire In The Sky.” This is the way creative work goes, up and down often from unexpected inspirations.

     Now we were into July. Again, I ripped apart the sky that I had configured and started over. My third re-do. But this time, it was clear; my connection to the fire theme of the exhibition would be the fire of the flares and the environmental message of that. And this time I realized that I needed to simplify my design, to make it more abstract and modern and not try to replicate an exact photograph. Still, I worked in fits and starts, getting more and more stressed and more discouraged about my ability to meet the August 31 deadline. I had sleepless nights about it, anxiety attacks about it, conversations with my therapist about it. And then one day, in late July just a precious four weeks or so before the deadline, a dear friend happened to call and catch me in the middle of a complete meltdown.

     “Why do you do this to yourself?” she asked. “With all you have on your plate, why do you impose these deadlines and put this additional stress on yourself?” And it was that question, in the middle of that meltdown, in the middle of my ranting and raving and anger and frustration with the moment, that I heard myself say, “Because this is who I am.”

     It is so easy to lose yourself in the details and demands of everyday life, most especially when you hit a period of rough going. Out of both necessity and survival, we default to our roles — mother, sister, daughter, spouse, friend, even our professional titles. But those roles, however important and loving and sustaining they might be, are not who we are intrinsically. Rather, they are a reflection of what we do and how we care for others, our roles reinforced by others, but alas only lasting as long as those significant others are around to reflect them. (This is why people suffer from empty-nest syndrome or have trouble finding themselves after retirement.) 

      At my core, I have always been a writer and a creative and I always will be. That identity doesn’t depend on anyone but me, so it’s important that I protect and preserve that in order to hold on to myself. It is often a struggle to create, and it is often even more of a struggle to stay strong and true to who you are, especially in the face of headwinds.

     So there, I’ve done it; I’ve completed “Fire In The Sky” and submitted the entry this week. It took about three weeks of intensive work, six-to-seven hours a day, and I am proud of myself.  Yes, I hope to get accepted into the exhibition, but more importantly, I accomplished my goal and met a deadline with work I can be proud of.  I did it because this is who I am and I don’t need anyone else to tell me that.