The Hedonist Page

Recently, I attended a class at QSDS (Quilt Surface Design Symposium) in Columbus Ohio. The class was taught by Jane Dunnewold, an artist from San Antonio known for her Complex Cloth. The name of the class was Using Archetypes for Artistic Inspiration (or something very similar!)

We used Carolyn Myss' Sacred Contracts, choosing 8 jungian archetypes and using 4 archetypes to round out our layout.

The four archetypes that were assigned (a therapist friend of mine said that one one would voluntarily pick those archetypes, they had to be assigned!):

Child - magical, innocent, or wounded

(I picked the magical child)

Prostitute

Saboteur

Victim

The 8 archetypes that I picked (after much agonizing on my part. I finally had to do a card draw to eliminate the last 4!)

Mentor

Artist

Gossip/Networker

Addict

Storyteller

Seeker

Hedonist

Goddess

We arranged these 12 archetypes in a house arrangement very similar to an astrological chart.

My Victim is in the house that covers ego and personalilty; Mentor covers life values; Artist covers self expression and siblings; Gossip/networker covers home; Addict covers creativity and good fortune; Saboteur covers occupation and health; Storyteller covers marriage relationships; Seeker covers other people's resources; Magical Child covers spirituality; HEDONIST covers my highest potential; Goddess covers my relationship to the world; and Prostitute covers my uncounscious.

Working on my inner child, I got back in touch with a large pool of images that I was very involved in when I was about 12. At that time I wanted to be an egyptologist, and was fascinated by all things eqyptian (ancient only). In exploring this imagery, I found the throne of Isis, the eye of Horus, scarabs, and the many hieroglyphs that are so pictoral.

After discovering that Hedonist was my highest potential, I became fascinated by lush, luxurious, shiny metallic fabrics that eptomize Hedonist to me.

I am involved in creating a series of pieces that involve all aspects of the HEDONIST archetype, including egyptian imagery, and lush, luxurious fabrics.

So far I have completed the following pieces:

This is a piece called Thrones of Isis, Copper 1. This piece uses metallic painted fabric that I purchased.

This piece features three kanjis (I know it is not egyptian, but it is screen printed with copper paint!). It is called Prayer Flags, Copper 1. This features Els Van Baarle screen printed silk, muslin and copper kanjis.

This piece is called Hedonist Circles 1. It is a study for future pieces, and the execution is not what I wanted it to be, but it is a great prototype. It features some absolutely gorgeous fabrics from Lonni Rossi. I have had the fabric for over a year, and could not bear to cut into it. Well, it has circles cut out of it now, and I will do more pieces using the circles and the same fabric.

This is the first piece in this series, and I created the white inner portion while I was at QSDS. It uses metallic fabrics, purple silk, hand carved stamps and muslin. I like the contrast of the metallic fabrics, the purple silk and the muslin.


I have two more pieces started, using the copper fabric, a panda print and an iris print. I will add those later.