Installation view of A quilt to hold the barrier between worlds (2021).
A quilt to hold the barrier between worlds (2021)
Combining stained glass, silver chain, resin, dried herbs and wildflowers, A quilt to hold the barrier between worlds (2021) is a space for grief and quiet contemplation. Following timescales of mourning and healing, the installation is an ongoing collaboration with the artist’s departed grandmother, Grace. Using traditional quilt blocks and those of her grandmother’s design, stained glass is a material translation of Grace’s way of seeing / being. Here, stained glass is neither pictorial nor oratory. Rather, its aura is one of reflection, ritual, boundary-bending, and re/connection. Hudspith’s glass quilt acts as barrier and lens through which to channel loss and to honour the dead, a window in/unto spaces beyond. Transparent and opaque, opalescent and iridized, mirrored and shadow-casting; the glass quilt is sentinel to the barrier and healer.
As time passes and grief transitions to memorial, the quilted boundary seems to disintegrate and requires care. Fallen pieces dangle from delicate silver chains. Castings with floral inclusions or sprigs of dried medicinal herbs act as healing offerings that replace areas of missing glass. A ritual space for its maintenance unfolds below: a parabolic mirror doubles as an herbalist’s vessel and as refractive lens that bends the quilt-space above, while broken and not-yet-attached pieces of glass are strewn about between medicinal bundles.
A quilt to hold the barrier between worlds (2021). Mixed media installation: Stained glass, mirror, solder, silver jewellery chain; cast resin with seeds and foral inclusions; dried wildflowers and medicinal herbs (including thistle, nettle, and evening pimrose); concave acrylic mirror vessel; steel tripod armatures; prism, directed light. Dimensions variable