Name: Sun Catcher / Dream Catcher: Last Sparks of Summer
Materials: Collected branches, wild roses, string, yarn, ceramic beads, wire, and stone.
Last Sparks of Summer began as an exploration inspired by Ruth Asawa’s hanging sculptures and her ability to create form through openness, repetition, and the spaces between woven lines. The piece is something more personal as it is a reflection on seasonal transition, interconnectedness, and my deep connection with Mother Spider.
The outer branch structure holds the fading remains of summer, and a few scattered wild roses were both gathered from the landscape in my backyard. The color and softness of the roses contrast with the roughness of the branches, but also there is an increasingly fragile quality of the drying flowers and the dying leaves. Rather than trying to preserve them, I wanted their inevitable change to become part of the artwork. Summer does not disappear all at once; it leaves behind small sparks as the world moves toward fall.
Inside the larger structure is a smaller woven leaf held within a web. This became my connection to Mother Spider who is the weaver, creator, and keeper of connections. A stone rests within her web, while another holds the space between the catcher and its yarn hanger. For me, the stones create grounding points within an otherwise delicate and changing structure.
Weaving became essential to this piece because weaving is an act of relationship. Each strand depends upon another strand, just as the inner form depends upon the outer structure while remaining distinct from it. I also was coming off a very rough, emotional weekend, and the weaving as I was creating the project was grounding and soothing, which seems to resonate with the entire concept of the piece. The empty spaces are equally important. They allow light, air, and the surrounding environment to become part of the work. There is nothing I love more than seeing the sunlight glistening off a spider web, as long as I am not about to walk through it.
Ultimately, Last Sparks of Summer is about holding and releasing at the same time, and it creates a container for what matters while allowing change, impermanence, and transformation to move through it.
A video of the piece hanging outside (with the birds singing in the background) after it was completed can be seen here
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