Melancholy Era

by Lin Hsin-Chen

It’s a scattered flower. It’s fragmented, beyond borders, beyond imagination. It has been forced to change the reason for living in order to protect the innermost vitality. The flowers in this era will be out of our impression and bloom beautifully in another way. Learning about reverse thinking is an important lesson.

July and August in 2014 are sorrowful to me. It’s a very different summer, due to environmental issues, climate, natural disasters, man-made disasters, earthquakes, typhoons, plane crashes, war, disease, etc.; we no longer feel the happiness that summer brings to us. Dozens of major disasters occurred worldwide during this period. Living in Taiwan, the gas pipeline explosion which happened in the neighbor city makes me extremely anxious. I used to believe that if we think positively, unfortunate things will never come. However, that’s not the fact.

Does the comfortable and safe world no longer exist? Sketching before making a quilt used to be an easy thing for me, but this time I couldn’t make a decision after I drew several pictures. I couldn’t sweep the sorrow away so I had to give up. I followed my heart to cut the fabric freely and sew them by hand. I pray for healing the sorrows by the warmth of hand sewing. Sadness will pass and bring out opportunities for changes and miracles. I used the hand dyed fabrics that I got from Sue in this quilt. They strengthen and enrich my work.

Living in this generation, we need to have not only the courage of accepting diverse challenges due to global environmental changes, but also the ability of overcoming the fears. “A stitch in time saves nine” reminds me of a Chinese saying, "Be prepared for danger in times of peace". Thank you, Sue, this challenge topic gave me another chance for introspection. I hope everyone is safe and sound.

Materials: dyed fabric, commercial cottons, satin, beads, metallic threads, statuette, cross

Techniques: hand pieced, hand appliqué, hand quilted

Size: 18” x 27”