"Wilma (Peace Voodoo)" detail view and statement
by Susan Shie Contact me
back to 2005 Gallery page ////// full view
"Wilma (Peace Voodoo)" Full view. 66.5"h x 66.5"w.
Begun October 20, 2005. Finished November 7, 2005. #309.
Whole cloth painting on fabric. Beginning design and colors airbrushed on, then airpen drawing and writing with fabric paint. Machine crazy grid quilted. One row of hand sewing inside edge of border. One Green Temple Buddha Boy bead.
Hurricane Wilma actually started up about four days before I began this piece. It was terrible to think that she would develop into another huge hurricane, after what we'd been through, or rather what the Gulf States had been through, with Katrina and then Rita. But there she was, and she ended up being even bigger, bigger than any Atlantic hurricane ever on record. We've had more hurricanes this year than ever before on record, too, with Wilma tying the 1933 record, and Beta taking us into the dubious glory of the lead.
The only good thing I can say about Wilma is that she didn't re-destroy so much of the Gulf States. She did wreck the Yukatan Peninsula of Mexico though, ripping it up there for over a full day of terrible damage. She affected Haiti and Cuba, and then she roared across southern Florida, and people there still don't have electric or gasoline. Imagine what Cosumel and the rest of the Yukatan are still going through. Jeb Biush promised Florida that they were ready for Wilma, that they didn't have to worry about being left stranded It happened again, for whatever reasons.
Meanwhile, back in my personal life, I decided to make this piece about the four generations of women in my family: Mom, me, Gretchen, and Eva, and to show us like Russian stacking dolls. Only it's hard to do that with bodies sitting in Buddha girl positions. So we're kinda stacked, looking more like a Buddha totem pole. We ended up with saucepans on our heads, and the men in our lives are with us, plus Gretchen's cat Isis, since Eva doesn't have a beau yet. She did get the Croup during the making of my Wilma piece though.
I put a gigantic St Quilta the Comforter on the right side of the piece, to balance the stack of Shie women. Q has two heads where her breasts would be, and I finally decided they're YaYa Pat and her mother Mary Kearney, who were both very sick at the same time, while I was making this piece.
As usual, I did a little writing on Wilma each day, every time I got a chance. I'd write with the airpen and then let it dry, coming back later to write some more. Current events, like the indictment of Lewis Libby re the Plamegate affair, are part of this piece. Bush stuff. Rosa Parks died on October 24, and I wrote about her in this piece, too. She was such a wonderful and peaceful worker for social change!
Turtle Moon Studios: Outsider Art Quilts and Paintings
Susan Shie and James Acord
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