The hundreds of fabric pieces made by more than 90 people at CJP Women’s Philanthropy’s event have now been sewn together into four tree panels representing the four seasons and passage through the generations. The images of the sun behind the trees represents illumination. These themes were chosen by the event organizers as a way to make art that would be meaningful to the residents of Coleman House (where they will be hung) and to the event participants.
Though they look small in the photo, each of the panels is 2’x4′, and they’ll fill a large blank space on one of the hallway walls. From a distance you can see the shapes and colors of the trees and from closer in, you can read words that participants chose and painted around the edges of each section of the design.
I chose to stretch the fabric around pre-stretched canvases to provide them with structure while still leaving them lightweight enough to hang easily. For most of the painting we used natural cotton fabric that’s intended to take dye. It’s a little bit darker than bleached fabric but acrylic paint mixed with water held very well on it, even without the addition of fabric medium.
(action shot courtesy of Jordyn Rozensky)