THE QUILT
The story of this quilt starts back in 2013 when I’ve created giant moth prints for a fashion collection which we presented in Vladivostok in 2015. I’ve combined this quilt from a variety of my archived hand-bleached prints, created over the years for different projects and exhibitions. I had collected and treasured them for more than a decade but at some point, I decided to combine them in a series of art quilts, and this is the first one in the series of three.
POWERFUL QUOTATION
‘You cannot make my heart mute’ is a phrase symbolic for me for a number of reasons. It’s a quotation from Akira Kurosava’s 1958 movie The Hidden Fortress, where the stunningly strong and beautiful female character of Princess Yuki, played by Misa Uehara, has to conceal her regale nature by playing a mute peasant, so nobody can guess her royal upbringing when she travels through the enemies land. In a moment of heartfelt indignation she exclaims ‘You cannot make my heart mute, too!’, which means that while outwardly showing submissiveness, she remains a person of highest moral standards and beliefs.
TEXTS
I’ve made different parts of the quilt in different periods of my life, while the principal text part was made in January 2023, the most important year for me in many ways. In the period of winter 22/23 I was looking for a variety of powerful slogans and quotations to introduce to my textile artworks and even started writing some poetic texts.
So this quilt, which I have started with a print of a giant Moth back in 2013, became a powerful visual message of colors and textures. I’ve finished it by Sashiko hand-stitching, inspired by traditional Japanese Boro quilts made of fabric scraps. In some way, my art quilt is also made of ‘fabric scraps’, each one hand-printed and treasured over a decade.
