Christine Barker

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Prostitute Judge Christine Barker

Calgary AB Canada

To eat an orange is to taste pure sunlight. It is the taste I choose to eat first thing every morning. Orange is a favourite colour showing up in many of my dresses, remembered and often photographed sunrises, sunsets, and flowers of all kinds. It is warm and bright, which can also mean intellectual, and in the softer ginger tones, once my hair. It is the colour of fire; the element where three of my archetypes sit – my Dilettante, Hedonist and Victim.

My Dilettante, whose chakra’s colours are red and yellow, blends my personal power – yellow with security, and red – leading to a determined ego, willing to explore many paths. She has encouraged me to write poetry, make books, take photographs, manipulate them, sew garments, quilts, embroider, but has always longed to paint while the other two are adamant that mark making abstracts are my best option, as my drawing skills are limited. So, I dash off studies with random brushstrokes and organic squiggles then wonder how these can be useful. I have tried many times to find a path from playing with paint to stitch but I am often more interested in the playing than the developing.

Frustrated, my Victim stuffs these efforts into a drawer and whines quietly that I should do better next time. Too many ideas coupled with indecision sent me searching through drawers.The word Glow for some reason kept echoing in my head and I found a study of mostly lines and brush strokes in shades and tints of orange that appealed. My dilettante was delighted, at last a painting!

I traced the line design onto white linen and found all the orange embroidery floss I had on hand. My Hedonist, who always seeks the best wine for dinner, was pleased that there were some lines in tones of red–violet,. It was the perfect burgundy, but the deep indigo of the Victim was not present in the painting. Her complaining in the background would not be silenced.

So, because I have perhaps too often stitched only on white backgrounds I took a photo of the painting, printed it and coloured in the background with an indigo shade and everything popped. The shades of orange, burgundy, yellow, and ginger all became a clear dialogue.

I stitched, adding some single silk yarn gifted me from my weaver brother. It was a perfect addition, as I had run out of orange floss. I painted the background with Inktense blocks and it all became ”a discussion on the line”.

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Discussion on the Line 2021 10" x 10" Embroidery/Needlework $90 freehandimpressions@gmail.com freehandimpressions.com