"The Lazy Susan / Wheel of Fortune: Card #10 in The Kitchen Tarot." Detail view and statement.
by Susan Shie Contact me
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"Lazy Susan / Wheel of Fortune: Card #10 in The Kitchen Tarot" detail view. 2005. 48"h x 34.5"w.
Begun May 4, 2002, Finished May 1, 2005. #296
Materials: White cotton, fabric paint. Airbrush, airpen, and hand brush painted. Very heavily hand quilted, including shisha stitching. Some machine work by my husband James Acord over a little of the writing. Some shisha mirrors and one Green Temple Buddha Boy bead.
Processes: Whole cloth painted quilt. Airbrush, airpen, and hand brush painted. Much hand embroidery that doubles as quilting, small amount of machine work. Tons of diary written straight onto the painting. Worked on initially in May, 02, then set aside. Most of the airpen tiny writing was done in 2004, and almost all of the hand stitching was done in 2005.
Statement: In a regular Tarot card deck, the #10 card is The Wheel of Fortune, so when I was choosing what kitchen object to represent it in my deck, The Kitchen Tarot, I had to find something round. I had always hated the term "lazy susan" as a kid, but now I just think it's funny! I knew I could divide my lazy susan into the 12 houses of an astrology chart, which the Tarot Wheel card does usually, too. And I started to think up what kitchen stuff would represent each sign of the zodiac. This was really fun!
We had a student named Trish Haskey staying at our house for camp when I started this piece. Trish helped me figure out the objects, and we had a great discussion to get them all into place, so thank you, Trish!
Only thing is, in my notes for the astrology sign/kitchen objects' placement, I had switched the compost bucket and the meat grinder, and forgot to switch them when I drew and wrote them onto the painting. So you have to switch them in your head: The compost bucket should be for Scorpio, and the meat grinder should be for Capricorn. Sorry.
I put our cat Evil Tulip sitting below the wheel, watching it spin. Trish just loved Tulip, and you know how cats are fascinated by moving things, and are just curious in general. Wonder where that wheel will stop this time!
I had a ton of pieces started over the last few years, and only in 2004 did I find time to put gobs of diary writing onto this painting, after getting good enough with my airpen skills that I could write over painted fabric fairly easily. It kinda blobbed anyhow, as this particular cotton is super absorbant and has a damask weave to it. So sometimes the writing is more just texture. You have to guess some of it, if you really want to read it all. Then I let it sit again. Finally in 2005, I bit the bullet and hand sewed a LOT on this piece, when my granddaughter Eva was sleeping or was content to sit in her swing or little seat. Not often enough for obsessive sewing work, but then, I needed to hold her a lot, while she was so little!
This Lazy Susan piece did get a lot of shisha mirrors sewn onto it, and some of my quilted holes, because while I was teaching a lot in the last years, I would use it over and over to demo these sewing techniques.
Turtle Moon Studios: Outsider Art
Quilts and Paintings
Susan Shie and James Acord
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