Homeward Thoughts

This is number 33 in the exhibition and is a very recent work. It is part of a series of 12 pieces representing each of the verses in the poem "My Country" by Dorothea Mackellar.  This poem is very popular in Australia and was once taught to every school child. I belong to a group called The Darling Downs Textile Art Group, so we all took a verse and made an identically sized piece which was then exhibited in a local gallery at Gatton in the Lockyer Valley.  This is only the second time it has been exhibited.

The calico background of my interpretation was rust and iron dyed in the garden and I let the resulting patterns dictate the content. The reflection in the water was surprising and I only found it when the piece was photographed. The ghostly trees were made from recycled wool, invisibly stitched in place so that they would appear insubstantial. The last  verse of the whole poem reads:

Though earth holds many splendours,

Wherever I may die,

I know to what brown country

My homing thoughts will fly.