Linda Colsh
Water Writing, 2017
Cotton fabric painted, dyed, inked & printed; machine pieced & machine quilted H40 x W40 inches
Drawing inspiration from the creek landscape where I walk, Water Writing explores the flow of a stream’s current over and around the rocks that the water has placed in more violent times during storms. The soft, silty creek bed accepts the rocks and molds to the moving water in lines that are reminders of the surface ripples. Having grown up on an island in the Chesapeake Bay, my concern with the health of the Bay extends over more than 60 years. While now, I live many miles from the Bay, my home is definitely in the Bay’s watershed and what I do where I live now can and does, in fact, impact the Bay.
Linda Colsh
There Not There, 2020
Painted, screenprinted, inked & dyed by the artist with screens made from her digitally altered photographs; machine pieced, machine quilted H7 x W127 inches (installed as a loose tangle: H9 x W24 x D24 inches)
The idea for There Not There began as a story of migration. But with the arrival of COVID, we retreated and isolated in our homes. Complications arose: masks, what kind of masks, how to obtain food and other needs (home delivery, curbside pickup, in store masked, sanitized, gloved and distanced), shortages…. I looked out my window to the sky and saw formations of migrating Canada geese. The contrast of a population on lock down and the freedom of flying geese could not have been more stark. Daily life became a complicated, messy tangle of restrictions, rules, guidelines and suggestions.
Linda Colsh
Invisible, Disappearing Act 3, 2020
Cotton fabric painted and printed by the artist; machine pieced & machine quilted H48 x W12 inches
In early 2020, we disappeared into our homes out of common sense and, in many cases, under governmental guidelines and regulations to socially distance. Before coronavirus, we were free and went where we pleased. Now there is anxiety and fear. It is difficult if not impossible to see neighbors, family, even strangers because pandemic restrictions, government- or self-imposed and fear of the virus demand distance and isolation. Behind closed doors, others have become invisible to us; we have become invisible to others. Life is a story of ghosts.
Linda Colsh
Brocken Spectre, 2020
Cotton fabric painted and printed by the artist; machine pieced & machine quilted H48 x W12 inches
Enjoying quiet solitude as a time to reflect on life's resonant, reassuring repetitions, I hope for morning valley fog or late afternoon mist to rise up from the creek. The cold mist or enveloping fog surrounds like an invisibility blanket. Brocken spectre is a special natural phenomenon: a shadow cast on fog that happens when someone or something stands between fog and sun. I’ve placed two self-portraits of myself next to branches in a late Spring surprise snowfall: a print of myself looking up in wonder and the second with my umbrella creating distance and protection
Linda Colsh
A Simpler Place In Time, 2020
Cotton fabric painted and printed by the artist; machine pieced & machine quilted H48 x W12 inches
In March 2020, the streets emptied due to coronavirus. Boredom in isolation, but artists’ need to create is powerful. Turtle Fountain artist. Finding places to quietly continue, I re-imagined the artist who I photographed sitting quietly drawing sketches of Rome’s Turtle Fountain. In my imagination, I moved this gentle artist to a place beside my creek, at my favorite spot where the current tumbles around the Middletown Granite-Gneiss boulders – placidly bubbling when the water is low or raging and tumbling madly after a storm.
Linda Colsh
Danaë, 2020
Cotton fabric painted and printed by the artist; machine pieced & machine quilted H48 x W12 inches
Inspired by the myth of Danaë, whom Zeus visited disguised as a shower of gold coins, I reinterpreted the Greek princess as a gentle, stooped woman walking along a path in the autumn woods. As morning mist lifts, the bronzed and golden colors of autumn trees signal the break from summer’s heat. Each year, I look forward to first frost, when fields sparkle and the morning sun shines silvery gold. The wind floats leaves from trees to fall to earth like gold coins. I call these my “Danaë Days” – days that remind me of Titian’s painting of Danaë with the princess looking up at gold coins raining down.
Linda Colsh
Gesture, 2020
Cotton fabric: whole cloth art quilt painted by the artist using natural materials (broom plant brush); machine quilted H56 x W18 inches
Seeking extreme simplicity, I found the muscle memory from my oriental calligraphy studies from 40 years ago to paint big strokes with the branch of a broom plant across a plain white field. My goal was minimalist, meditative, whole body movement marks as an expression of quiet and solitude.
Linda Colsh
par hasard, 2020
Standing Scroll: Side 1 printed used paper coffee filters; Side 2 cotton fabric painted, printed, inked & dyed by the artist (includes screenprinting with screens made from her digitally altered photographs); machine pieced & machine quilted H9 x W120 inches (installed as single scroll: H9 x W21 xD14 inches; double scroll H9 x W28 x D14 inches)
Rock-paper-scissors, a game of selection played around the world. The game depends on chance (par hasard in French) and relies on hiding, then showing one’s choice. Used paper coffee filters screenprinted with images of scissors overlap on the outside of my scroll. The filters I save are memories of friends and conversations shared over coffee – friends who have been cut from my life when we moved away to new places. The inside is printed images of creek stones on fabric. Stone screens are made from my tracings in paint and ink of the creek stones to represent both the presence and absence of stones moved along by the current – a metaphor for those who migrate and move on. Like the selection game, the standing scroll form hides and reveals.
Linda Colsh
Once Belonged, 2018
Cotton fabric: screenprinted, inked & dyed by the artist with screens made from her digitally altered photographs; machine pieced & machine quilted H12 x W120 inches (coiled into a single or double spiral scroll)
With drawers, doors, shelves and slots, a cabinet of curiosities is a piece of furniture in which to keep objects for contemplation and study. Mystery and exclusivity are heightened by the secret, hidden places. Once Belonged presents two of my collections: numbers & people. Finding inspiration in the streets, I collect images of real people who are anonymous to me and I develop them as personalities, creating stories around them. I admire idiosyncratic, graphically interesting house numbers and I collect photos of these too. Installed as a single or double spiral, the scroll conceals many of the numbers and people, provoking curiosity about what is hidden. The wonder about what else is there, but not seen in the coiled scroll creates a cabinet of curiosities, a wunderkammer.
Linda Colsh
Cyphers, 2015
printed & painted paper, layered & stitched; monofilament variable installation, as shown approx. H48xW72xD60inches
This kinetic installation hides and reveals the people who move. They are the diasporians: numbers who arrive, stay and leave. They fit only as residents not natives, in but not of. Their identity is often reduced to a number.
