Fiber Artist Grace Forrest

I want to share the textile work of Grace Forrest, a woman who inspires me on a daily basis with her lifestyle in New Mexico;  her goats, her yard, the wind that blows thru, and her art.  

Grace calls this piece below "Luring Crows", and she graciously decided to part with it so that I could enjoy and display it in my home.  

From the moment I watched her begin this piece on her blog,  it was love at first site.  The colors of the natural dyes on the cloth, the textures, the stitching and finally the girl calling to the crows.  I used to call to the crows myself when I was a youngster, then later again as a young adult (they are such spiritual birds).    I asked Grace if her piece was for sale and she said she needed 6 bales of hay for it or the price of the bales  LOL  "Sold I said!"  

It lives at our home now, and hangs to my right as I write this post.  It is such a feel good piece to me.  I love glazing at it from afar as well as close-up.  Thank you again Grace for sending it my way.

I hope Grace, you don't mind, me sharing your intriguing story about how you packed the quilt and sent it to me, and what happened as you did.  Perhaps I should ask you first, I don't know, since you posted it on your blog,  I'm assuming it might be alright.  Well here goes...

"i wasn't going to say anything about this.

but then, as time goes on, it feels like i am dishonoring something.  This is the cloth and the stick that i sent to Debra in California....Luring Crows.  i packaged it in a very LARGE cardboard folder, much larger than the cloth, to accommodate the stick.  it was more than 2ft square.  all kinds of feelings and thoughts were present when i was taping the stick down, wrapping the cloth in tissue.  making it secure.  all kinds of thoughts and feelings about exchanging this THING for money.  a LOT.   and in it i enclosed a short note to her telling her about what that meant to me...luring crows.

how there are crows that go overhead and have recently swooped low, seeming to be interested in the arrival of the Goats, seeming to be, just more Willing to look down.  and how i call them.  how i hang laundry on the clothes line almost for them,  how i wave and yell to them  if they are high.  and what it is i want.....is just that they might come here, for just a  moment  to light on the dead branches of the big Russian Olive, or on the fence, fence post.  Just that.  that it would be enough.

so, i put this note in with the cloth and stick and there is a great Wind doing what it does out there and i go out, to go to the post office to send this and as i am unlatching the gate, i for whatever reason, look to my right and then

up

and there,  There on the top branch of the Russian Olive is

a crow.

a crow.

i stand there and see it.  i watch it seeing me.  seconds pass and then in a kind of slow motion, it's wings raise just barely and extend, just barely and Wind lifts it up and sails it off to the right, up and in the current....the crow making no effort at all and it is gone from my sight.

i stood there.  hanging on to the cardboard envelope.  not knowing what to do.  feeling like i should fall to the ground or something, i  should DO something.

but what i did is to continue through the gate and latch it closed and get into the car and head off for the Post Office.  staring straight ahead.  continuing.  and i mailed it.  and now it's a couple days later and i think as i did in that moment driving down the road,  that That's also probably like how it is even when we are dying.  When we somehow know we are about to exhale for the last time.  and we

exhale.

we Just Go.  

and i wasn't going to write this here.  it seems so improbable.  so surreal.   But it happened. 

it was no more, but no less."

A few close-ups of the delightful detail that Grace has stitched into her work.

The girl...

 the crows...

and a tiny personal favorite, this wonderful mark that she has stitched into the cloth.  I wonder?  Does she always stitch this mark into all her pieces, kind of like her signature mark?  I like to think it is just for the crows.  I'll have to ask.