Zen Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus pods and leaves fractured by cutting into bits, chunks, and squares. In this case, reassembled and overlaid with circles to become nearly whole again if only in memory. A Zen meditation and tribute to the giant, regal, scented Eucalyptus tree with its colors of taupe, celadon and plum.  

I’m a native California, and, to me, the scent and multi-colors of the ubiquitous Eucalyptus trees are endlessly fascinating and beautiful. Early in my career as an artist I created a large watercolor painting of just the trunk of a 100 year-old Eucalyptus, and framed it in real Eucalyptus pods, because I wanted to retain the scent along with the image.  

I started this quilt with no vision of the completed piece. It started with a single rectangle of hand-made felt (wet-felted by me), cut into squares, and hand stitched individually. The meditative process of stitching is so enjoyable; I don’t need to know or think about the end result.  I made more pieces of felt, cut them into oddly shaped squares and stitched away. Eventually, I arranged all the little squares onto a larger piece (of hand-dyed batting) and hand stitched them together and back it with a large piece of 100% wool felt.

The title and meaning of the piece Zen Eucalyptus came to me while stitching the individual squares together. Zen circles became a consistent design element in the squares of felt, the colors are reminiscent of the Eucalyptus trees than line the streets in a nearby neighborhood and, part of this quilt is made from pieces of  quilt I created in 2005, with images of Eucalyptus leaves and pods.

Click on the image above to view the detail larger.