Celebration by Sheila Ary

"Celebration" is one of those pieces which took a long time to grow and come to fruition. Several years ago I took a workshop with Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn for which we were asked to bring pieces of velvet or other fabric suitable for transfer painting. I had some velvet, but of course felt the need to go shopping for more, and found a cheap and tacky yellow velvet which challenged me, although I was not sure that I actually liked it. However it responded magically to the transfer paint, which covered or blended with most of the yellow.

Now I had a magnificent piece of fabric that I did not know what to do with, in fact I think I was even a little intimidated by it. I had never worked with anything like this before. I got it out fairly often so that I could live with it for a while. At first I tried the effect of hand stitching on the surface, but without any result that I liked, since the background seemed always to drown out the stitching. This standoff continued until recently, when, with the encouragement of friends, I tried putting things onto the surface. This was what was needed, and a lot of things came and went until finally it reached the point when it needed nothing more.

I am very happy with the final result. It still surprises me that I have produced something so unlike my previous work. The title "Celebration" reflects the successful completion of this piece, and its promise of future possibilities.