May 6, 2022

2022 has continued to present challenges. Personal, health, family and of course the continuing unpleasantness of the COVID19 Pandemic.

Through all of the ups and downs, I've been quilting.

All the while developing new patterns and indulging in my love of geeking out to a good font. Alphabets are my thing apparently.

The irony that this quilt presents me with is that I’ve taken the HIGHWAY GOTHIC font and created a set of templates to create roadsigns - the basic tool of the traveller - all the while struggling deeply with the ability to convince myself to leave the house.

Home has been a refuge for the more than two years that we’ve faced pandemic, and I’ve recently had a hard time coming to terms with the need to leave the house, sometimes for the basics like groceries or for medical care.

I know I’m not alone in my struggles. Many have faced more difficulties than me.

In this quilt I’ve looked at the importance of place, even though I might be stuck there with my own mental shackles sometimes.

Yamba , the place I live, is special.

Not only to the locals that call Yamba home, or to the many who holiday here. It is a special place to the generations of Summer holiday makers, fishermen, trading ships, businesses, farmers and merchants who have visited here since colonisation in the 18th Century.

Importantly Yamba is a place owned, loved and a physical, tangible part of the Yaegl People, the traditional owners and custodians of this land, river Biirinba (The Clarence River) and out into the ocean.

This quilt is an illustration of the way the modern world has imposed itself on the place. We’ve named labelled and signposted this place, often with European names with little regard for those who came before us.

Happily Yamba and neighbouring Angourie are words in the Yaigirr Language.

Yamba is the place of Plenty of Shellfish, and Angourie is Noisy Ocean.

The quilting on this piece is representative of the road that leads from the highway turn off to these two beachside towns and the rows and rows of sugar cane fields that flank the highways.

(This piece sold at exhibition and has made it’s way to it’s forever home)