Guest Artist – Jenny Bowker – Canberra Australia

I was delighted with the Isolation prompt. 

In January when the first Covid 19 cases were recorded in USA and Australia I dithered about going to the States to teach at Road to California. We had watched videos of Chinese collapsing in the streets of Wuhan, then Beijing. I worried about the wisdom of flying but was under contract.

None of my American students had heard about it. I left on Monday 27^th January and bought a paper as I waited at the airport – Kobe Bryant had just been killed and the headline was for him – but right beside that article was an article about a race for a vaccine for coronavirus – so I could not understand why my students had not seemed to know about it.

Australia slammed borders shut – first to anyone who had travelled from or through China, then to the rest of the world.

I was afraid. The first death in Canberra was someone I knew and it was suddenly very real.

We stayed home. We ordered grocery deliveries. I knew I was high risk in every way and I felt myself withdrawing as my whole world went grey. I cancelled bookings for tours and classes and my horizons suddenly disappeared as there was NOTHING left to look forward to in my future.

I started to assemble class samples – which meant stepping into the world of much more traditional quilting. I designed a simple nine patch block called Jenny’s Isolation Star, and I put it out on social media and that became the background for this quilt. I realised that all my time as a quilter had been training for a period of isolation as I was quietly happy.

I found myself paying more attention to small arrangements in my home. I found the idea of a still life quilt suddenly appealing – and it was doubly appropriate as my life had become a still life. I played with placements of backgrounds for Zoom meetings with friends and colleagues.

Most of my small decorative items hold memories of places I have been and people I have cared about. 

As spring warmed our city and welcome rain fell our garden suddenly started to produce incredible flowers – almost as an apology for a hard year. Every morning my husband picked roses and sweet peas and their perfume became part of my still life.

Australia is still closed to international travel and I have just cancelled and postponed bookings up until November 2021. But – we have the virus under control, vaccines being tested, and the flowers are still blooming, I have enough fabric to last several lifetimes, and I am – mostly – content.

ON THE INSIDE

Pieced and raw edge applique

38 ½ “ x 38 ½ “