Wedding banner, now baby room banner

In 2011, I was asked to create a piece of art for my friends’ wedding. Sean Burns and Claire Duplantier had asked four artists—Mona Caron, Ona Lesassier, Paz de la Calzada, and myself—to each create something to adorn the site of the wedding, framing the entry to the two lodges at the wedding site. We were also asked to imagine the pieces flanking Sean’s musical performances or beautifying their future home. The buildings, Main Lodge and Heart Lodge, at Saratoga Springs are light cream colored buildings with trim in mustard shades. Simple color banners were envisioned to brighten the buildings and charm the weekend.

Our color choices were:

While we did not have a fixed motif, we were working with a folk art theme, and these four motifs recur in many cultures’ symbols of marriage:

More comfortable with a collaged style (over painting or drawing), I chose to create a piece from found fabric. I had been collaging birds for the past couple years, and brought this theme into my piece. Mona and Ona focused on peacocks, and unconsciously I included a piece of African fabric with a peacock feather design I have had for over a decade. The nest is a handsewn patchwork of small pieces of unhemmed fabric and yarn dangling in a sort of fabric approximation of a woven nest. The birds (based on a goldfinch and a western tanager) are yarn outlines that I very carefully sewed on to the top layer by hand.

I had the chance to share ideas with and work with references to the banner that Paz was creating as well, which was a treat, since her work is smart and gorgeous at the same time. Paz incorporated some of the colors of yarn and pieces of fabric that I used, and her signature hairscape drawing brought a braided image into the mix.

While sewing the final pieces with it laid on my lap before the wedding, it felt to me like I was connecting to a long tradition of making a wedding quilt, bringing in the folk art feeling even more. It was definitely infused with coziness!

When we hung the four banners at the wedding I remarked that mine would be perfect in the (not yet conceived, maybe in imagination, but at least not in body…) baby’s room. Then in December 2012, as Claire and Sean got their baby’s room prepared for his arrival, imagine my delight when I received a photo of my banner on the wall! They worked with the theme of the tree and birds and got curtains that “match.”

Particularly seeing it next to the crib made me smile, because one of the songs of Sean’s band, Professor Burns and the Lilac Field, is called Birds with the first lyric: “I talk to birds…” I think with this decor little Arlo James may just grow up doing so…

Thanks to Michael Rauner, Mona Caron, and Claire Duplantier for the photos.