February's Four In Art challenge is based on literature.
One of my all-time favorite books is The Screwtape Letters
by CS Lewis. The book is about a senior devil, by the name
of Screwtape, who teaches a junior devil about the art
of tempting the enemy (which are the humans).
I chose the quote...
"The game is to have them running
about with fire extinguishers
when there is a flood."
I titled the quilt Smoke Screens,
because this is Screwtape's intent... to have the smoke
from the extinguisher prevent us from seeing the real
problem that is at hand. Essentially we're blinded.
With this scenario people are going through
the motions of thinking they are solving
problems, but with the wrong results.
I found CS Lewis' signature on the internet and
printed it on red fabric for the fire extinguisher.
For the actual quote I used Illustrator to
design the text and printed it out on the gray
background fabric (which is extra from a
skirt I recently made). Since these are actually
CS Lewis' words I thought it would be good
to have them looking like they are coming out
of the fire extinguisher.
I used silver thread to free motion quilt the text.
Boy, I was seeing circles after all those little letters!
My youngest kiddo wanted to get in on the
free motion quilting fun too.
I really like this quote since it's about
Screwtape teaching to distract humans during
a crisis with the wrong resources to life's problems.
How often do we find ourselves in a flood,
but are tempted or distracted with the wrong solution?
Close up of the fire extinguisher handle. I used silver
heat-resistant fabric for the handle and nozzle.
Detail of silver text.
I liked the surface patterns pictured here with the
light reflecting on the silver thread.
Blue thread was used in the bottom half of the quilt to represent the flood that the fire extinguisher is being used on. I also added a some red, in the very narrow binding, to help draw the eye across the quilt, to provide some balance to that HUGE extinguisher.
Blue fabric was added to the binding down where the flood is taking place.
One valuable lesson I learned is... never free motion
quilt while you are on the phone with
one of your college kids!
I accidentally did this on the red knob on
the fire extinguisher handle and decided the
quilting there was thoughtless & messy.
Back side of the Smoke Screen quilt, which looks like the
aftermath of fighting a flood with a fire extinguisher...
total chaos in a lost battle.
This is where Screwtape and his minions want us to be,
lost, distracted, exhausted and confused about all our efforts.
Personal Note:
I have found many parallels between
the temptations from the adversary and the
instruction from Screwtape. To me, CS Lewis' genius lies in
understanding the enemy and discerning his
intents, purpose and temptations with us.
I have been training Kyokoshin Karate for 7 years.
One thing that I have learned from karate is that
if you are to fight an enemy, you need to study
them and know their weaknesses and strengths
so that you can be triumphant.
And so it is in life...
You can view other Four In Art quilts here.
