http://www.JohnToth.net

Intermedia Art  Sculpture   Digital Art  Inner Eye  Painting

Fabric Is A Structure For Behavior 

    Perhaps the earliest memories we have of fabric are from the embryonic membrane that first served as our protective shelter.  And immediately from the womb we were dressed in furs, blankets and clothes.

      Later, as a child, I crawled under the quilting frame of my grandmother’s Slavic sewing circle.  My back to the damp basement floor, I watched, under the quilting frame, as needles poked through the tightly stretched fabric, stitching remnants from our worn out shirts into brightly colored geometric patterns.  Sitting around the perimeter, the husbands occasionally rose to readjust the clamps holding the quilt to the frame, testing the tension, aware of the surface.  The lights above lit the fabric, coloring the shapes, as I watched below the patterns grew.

      I played under  fabric landscapes that covered furniture in storage, in the scary part of the attic. Within the quiet moments of hide-and-seek, lying under the fabric protection, I discovered a place that gave refuge and a structure for visual fantasy.

        In later years, I camped in dark green resin soaked cotton canvas tents and watched shadowy trees and blistering light bend on sharp angles across the woven  textured surface that promised, during rain, not to drip unless I touched it.