The same day “communication" was announced as our theme, I strangely happened to applique birch trees in doubles. The branches started reaching out to touch to communicate. My brain said they stood for both our virtual and our face-to-face lives. We live two lives in one. However trite the image, my brain refused to entertain any other expression of the topic.
Today we have circles of friendship and families we see regularly, but just as important and real are the virtual friendships, families and lives we enjoy only via the Internet. It has been said that 4 out of 5 Internet users have developed new lives online in virtual worlds. It is interesting to think how communication differentiates these worlds. Presence, with its diverse elements, communicates as much as words in the physical world, while in the virtual world, communication is both focused and limited by the shared interests. Communication is never easy, face-to-face, but may be more difficult online; thus, the emergence of emoji, the Japanese term for the picture characters or emoticons that we use to clarify or stand for our facial expressions in real life. ☺ But that is another quilt!
A teaser: Are the communicating birches virtual or real? That is the paradox in all representational art. Note: This quilt is mounted to stretched canvas in a manner demonstrated in my February 13, 2013 blog posting on Linda Drawing Time.
You did a great job on a difficult topic! Thought provoking, too!
ReplyDeleteLove it. You speak to me. Our online friendship, an important part of my life, started with some casual exchanges about your dad, my mom, and Amarillo High. That was many years--and stories--ago. What's important to me is that those trees are there, have been and will be.
ReplyDeleteThe birches also look like neurons in the brain reaching out to communicate with each other. Jim
ReplyDeleteI like your interpretation very much. I do wonder if the trees would meet and cross, and what effect that'd have on
ReplyDeleteyour story.
The background behind the top part looks like bird seed, which seems apt somehow.
Good grief, I sound as confused as I am!
Thanks, my talented Linda,
RA
What a wonderful way to express communication! I love the "leaning toward each other" birches! Our friendship goes back to Yale days and the Mothers-To-Be Class almost 49 years ago, and here we are "communicating" daily about what's going on in our lives. How super!
ReplyDeleteI've already commented on the MM blog, but it is nice to see the quilt here, too! It is truly lovely and I love how the background and the trees echo one another. And trees bending toward each other--a lovely way to interpret "communicating."
ReplyDeleteLinda, I think trees communicate majesty and beauty and Nature's love for the different species on earth. We are so often inspired by trees, and I am inspired by your "quilt trees." YES they are real - real to me, anyway, as real as the friendship we enjoy. ss
ReplyDeleteI am very interested in your remarks on virtual communications and friendships on line. Some people bemoan the fact that we no longer write letters. Yet we have so much more contact with one another via email, than most people ever had by letter. Love your birches and stones, too. They remind me of Colorado.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteHi Linda,
Your blogs are incredible. What an amazing mind you have - clever, entertaining and I always learn something ! Love, Lynn