Art in a Pillow

I have to tell you….there were tears in my eyes as American Pharoah crossed the finish line of the Belmont Stakes Saturday evening.  Mr. Right and I watched the race in our hotel room at the end of a long bicycle ride Saturday.  I rode a total of 15o miles this week-end, and Mr. Right rode just a few miles more.  It was a beautiful week-end to be on a bicycle.

 

This is a big week for the mom in me.  Our son is arriving tomorrow for an overnight stop on the way to a business meeting.  Practically as soon as he leaves, then I am heading out the door to pick Jordan up at the Cincinnati airport (which is really in northern Kentucky.)  We are going to start her five-day visit with a stop at Ikea and the Ballards outlet before we head home.  Woo-hoo!!!  Spending time with my kids, even though they are both married adults, never gets old.

I have just a quickie post for you today.  A few years ago we spent several weeks in Burma (Myanmar) doing some volunteer work and touring around.  We went to the famous temples in Bagan which were breathtaking. The people of that country are very poor and try to earn money in creative ways.  While we visited the temples, young men tried to sell us small canvases that they had painted.  Most of the designs were the same or very similar, and so the competition between them was tough.

 

Mr. Right and I bought one of the canvases, and it has been sitting in my craft room ever since.  This is the young man who painted it.  (He isn’t in jail.  We were on the inside of a temple, and he was on the outside when I took the photo.  The bars are there for security.) My intention was to appliqué the fabric painting onto some cloth and then make a pillow.  I am here to finally report that the deed has been done.

 

 

Since I had some leftover fabric from the guest room shower curtain, I used it.  The colors worked well together, and it looked nice on the guest room bed.  Every bed can use another pillow.  Right?

 

 

When we travel, we make it a point to mix with the people.  That’s one of the reasons we enjoy our working vacations so much. We have befriended soooooo many interesting people around the world, and they never leave me.  I think about them often.  Every time I look at this pillow, I think about the young man who painted it and hope that he is happy in his life.  I did a simple zigzag stitch to applique it to the fabric making sure to protect his signature.

 

 

The entire piece of fabric is painted.  The background is blue, and then the design is painted on top of that.  Is it my taste?  Not exactly, but I picked the closest thing I could find to our colors.  I’m sure there’s some symbolism that I am totally missing, but that’s okay.  At least I know that I helped someone out, and that makes it all the more special.

 

If it seems as if I have been on a pillow kick lately, that would be correct.  You can check out the pillows I made for our summer look in the great room here.  After all, using pillows is a great way to change up the decor without a total overhaul.

Thanks for stopping in.

 

 

Take care.