This Moment

Wow, what a fun challenge! It was hard, but also fun; I spent many hours contemplating “Time” and what it means to me. In my mental meanderings, I kept returning to the concepts of past, present and future: our vernacular for tracing the continuum of time as it relates to our lives. 

My ideas about the past and present were formed fairly early in life and dictated many of my decisions. For example, when I graduated from college with a degree in accounting and the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam under my belt, the career trajectory was clear: join a CPA firm and complete the experience requirements to become a licensed CPA. I dutifully interviewed with the major accounting firms and received several offers but, through the interview process, I realized CPA duties were retrospective – reviewing the past. I wanted to affect the future. 

What to do? I turned down the offers of CPA positions and joined the only firm that hired college graduates directly into their consulting practice. I moved to a city that wasn’t my first choice place to live and started work for a firm that wasn’t my originally intended destination. It was the best decision of my life. Not only did I learn an entirely new field, I also completed my CPA experience requirements by working under a CPA developing financial computer systems.

I wish I could say I was smart enough to have forseen such invaluable outcomes, but it was really a simple decision about the past v. the future. We can’t affect the past, but we can influence the future. The only way to influence the future is by the choices we make this moment. I want to make a difference. To me, that means that this moment is all that matters. This very second.

In my quilt I tried to represent the importance of the moment and how we choose to use it. I also wanted to depict the intersection of past and future, and the reflections that our actions have both forward and backward. Having said that, I really wish I’d reflected a bit more on the past, I would have remembered that lamé is virtually impossible to use and photograph.

I used piecing, reverse appliqué and thread painting techniques. I shaded the hands with inktense pencils, the letters are stamped, stenciled and hand written with various iridescent inks. This piece is 18 x 18. I rarely choose a square but it seemed to reiterate the balance and harmony of past and present.