Progress has been very slow; Spring Break didn't provide the work time I was hoping for, and I might have to push back completion time as a result. However, I do have a coherent sketch and plan for the quilt itself. This is the general overview here.
It's as if you're seeing through an arch in a wall, or through a doorway. Up in the corners of the arches are two cities, black and red, seized with suffering and fire. From them falls tears or blood. But the tears fall into a spring that nourishes not only the green growing around it, but the olive tree in the center.
This is an idea of what I'd like the border to be, instead of the plain blocks sketched above. The figures will be more detailed and less stick-figure, I think. What I like is that the continuity of color from one 'scene' to the next makes it look like a filmstrip. Blue passes something to brown; brown passes it to pink, who passes it to purple, who passes it to green...This is the "chain" extending around the world and around the quilt.
This is another sketch of the tree. I'm going to use as many different greens as I can for the leaves and the green growing area around the spring, while keeping the water and the background as spare as possible. The things that grow from our tears are so vivid and varied.
