Artist statement: Time #2  Peru-PARACAS 800-200 BCE

The second piece in my Time series is inspired by our trip to Peru.  Visiting TIME;1997.

The textiles of the Paracas culture were made by South American people over a thousand years before the rise of the Inca and they provide some of the most stunning examples of pre-Columbian Andean fiber art. 

I took a fragment of a large piece of cloth (100 feet-34 mtr) that was used to wrap the bodies of the dead. The bodies were found in groups of 40 or 50 as if they were family vaults for several generations.

The subject of these brightly coloured images are  supernatural creatures or shamans who use their hands to hold severed human heads.

I drew the figure first and transferred it to tracing paper. Then covered the drawing with steam-A- seam and tulle. I cut all the different pieces from the tracing paper and out of fabric and carefully pressed them onto the Steam-A-seam covered tule. When done, the whole figure was cut out and transferred to the background which I then covered with tulle again.  Finally the whole work is finished with machine-embroidery and  free motion quilting .

The whole process can be seen on: http://kunamola.blogspot.com

Original artwork.