EXTRAORDINARY TIME is composed of six panels woven in a traditional tapestry technique. The material is predominantly wool and cotton, with highlights of silk, rayon, flax, coconut fiber, copper wire and antique glass buttons. Each panel measures 18” X 54”, the complete work being 9’ X 54”. The work was woven between February and October, 1995.
The work weaves together themes from the liturgical and the mythological year, using traditional Christian symbols as well as symbols from the natural environment. Each panel, read from left to right, represents a major season of the Christian calendar. Symbols and themes from nature and seasonal mythologies flow across the six panels. The entire piece constitutes a continuous unfolding of spirit-filled presence in creation. Suggestions of a natural landscape and river continue across the panels horizontally. The mythological year is portrayed by the positions of the sun moving into various relationship with the landscape and seasons.
The colors play an important role in the design. Colors of traditional liturgical seasons may predominate in one panel, but it is important to note that the color emerges and attenuates well beyond its predominate location. There is always an anticipation of what is to come and an echo of things past. For example, the black of Lent is introduced in the Advent panel, continues through the Christmas panel, becomes full blown in Lent, tapers off in the Easter panel, but remains as a small ripple through Pentecost and the Future panel. The flame of the Advent candle becomes full-blown in the flame of Pentecost, which in turn is transformed into the green tree of the Future.
My original conception of this work was that the Advent panel would be hung during Advent, the Christmas panel added at Christmas, and the other pieces in turn throughout the year until the full year brought the piece to completion.
The Advent panel is predominantly purple. Four candles and a dry branch symbolize hope for the future. The sun, underground here, as in the winter mythologies of the northern hemisphere, emerges at this point along with the river of water and air.
The Lent panel is dominated by a large black Tau cross, reflected as a shadow in the black sky. The sun slips into the river and the red of Christmas becomes a flow of blood.
Pentecost, rather than Easter, is the focal point of the entire piece, symbolized by a large red flame with the sun at its apex.
The Christmas panel is dominated by red, a large Christmas star, a rising sun, and the Vesica Piscis. The Vesica Piscis, or vessel of the fish, has from ancient times been associated with cosmic birth, and later became the Christian symbol of the fish.
The Easter panel, white and green, shows the dry branch blooming and the sun moving higher above the horizon.
The sixth panel, The Future, moves outside the traditional cycles. The shape of the flame is transposed to become an evergreen tree, growing out of the river of life. The sun leads off the edge and into the future. This panel, by moving outside both traditional Christian and mythological seasons, symbolizes ecological concern and hope for the future.