PREMONITION
Nancy Erickson
Missoula, Montana
2011
Fabric paints, oil sticks, and charcoal on satin and cottons. Machine stitched, appliquéd, and quilted.
42 x 64 inches (Four irregular pieces: moon, woman, and two dodo birds)
(Note: The black background is not part of this four-piece. free-form artwork. Velcro is attached to the back of each piece for mounting.)

A woman and two dodo birds sit beneath the moon.

Painting of a dodo by Frederick William Frohawk, 1905.

The dodo was a large and utterly defenseless flightless bird found only on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, near Madagascar. Dodos were easily killed for food by sailors stopping on the island, and, after the Dutch established a penal colony there, pigs, cats, dogs, and monkeys were introduced and made short work of dodo eggs, which were laid in nests on the ground. The last dodo bird was killed in 1681.

As in many of Erickson's recent quilts, the woman and birds are marked with images that reference neolithic cave paintings. She explains: "In the mid 1990s I worked on quilted pieces that showed bears in caverns or in rooms formerly occupied by humans and covered with cave drawings of early animals. The bears wander through these environments, teaching their cubs about history. In this quilt, the ancient history is imprinted on the animals themselves, who move freely on the wall."

$5000

Contact Robert Shaw for more information or to purchase

More quilts by Nancy Erickson