Detail pictures, including label, below.

I made this small quilt over Memorial Day Weekend, 2000. It is a study for a larger quilt that I am making for the Tarot Art Quilt Project, to represent a particular card from the tarot deck, the 8 of cups. I selected this card somewhat at random; I am not well versed in the meaning of the tarot cards, and just flipping through my books and decks, this card seemed to speak to me at the time. The cups cards usually pertain to love and relationships. The eight of cups represents moving on, weariness, searching for deeper meaning, letting go, feeling all used up, burned out.. It can signify the start of a journey of discovery, turning one's back on things material for those more spiritual. When I selected this card, I knew that some changes were imminent, but I was doing my usual expert job of denial and not facing up to the real issues.

<extremely personal paragraph ahead> I had been involved in a relationship for over a year and a half with a man that I loved with all my heart and soul, as he did me. I had never loved anyone the way I loved him. But it wasn't working anymore. It hadn't been for some time, but neither one of us was really tuned into that. Of course, looking back on it from where I sit now, it's all so clear to me.... When he told me on a particularly bad Friday night several weeks ago that he wanted to end the relationship, I thought I'd be devastated. But by the next morning, I was already feeling relieved. And with the passage of time, I see that I had lost parts of myself in that relationship, and it was time for me to get me back.

So last weekend, I made this little quilt, start to finish. I used my new scanner and printer to scan in some flowers that my lover had given me, and used those to make the label (with Bubble Jet Set). Making this quilt tied up a lot of loose ends in my mind, and signfied the real end of the romantic relationship for me. We are trying what many say is impossible--to maintain a friendship--but only time will tell. In the meantime, I'm back, feeling good about me again, and enjoying my own company very much again. (June 2000)