R21 Rose and Tapestry

R21 Rose and Tapestry
24 x 36" oil on panel
Private collection

How did I come about making this image? I was working on the Raven tapestry at the time, and had Rose pose with it. Rose had been ill, and had a fragile look. Her slumped pose is the natural posture she took when she sat down in the rocker.

Rose was curled in a chair on the other side of the room, stitching at a tapestry, a picture of a blue-black raven rising up out of a gold and green foreground of ferns and fireweed. There was no design on the fabric—she wasn’t following a pattern. She just built up her picture, stitch by stitch like a mosaic.

She looked up at Allan. Her smile spread so slowly that Allan found himself almost fully caught up in those lips, peripherally aware of her staring eyes and the pecking movement of the needle in the canvas.

-Mary Weymark Goss (from the unpublished novel, 'Raven')