Morus Alba

The inspiration is from memories and a photo I took in north-western Pakistan

My chosen flora is the white mulberry tree whose fruit, while travelling in the area, was abundant whether being sold on the roadsides by shouting children or being harvested especially for us. The trees are large and the given method is to hold out a tarpaulin/shawl, whatever comes to hand, while somebody climbs in to the tree to shake it, which is what is happening in the photograph. In this case they were collecting fruit for us and it was daintily served on a stainless steel platter. The fruit is tasty but not something I would rush out to buy! It brings back happy memories although if I remember rightly it was a forerunner to the main meal, specially cooked for us, of goat curry, the odour of goat was stronger than that of the curry, the sauce was alright but I avoided the meat!

I have use a rust dyed fabric as the background, I wanted a slightly grubby dusty look to it. Then I stencilled big leaves and machine stitched them before adding smaller leaves which I hand stitched and finally the mulberries themselves. The colours are dull and dusty rather like the photograph and my memory. The Latin name of the tree is stitched along the bottom using chain-stitch which is typical to the area.

Detail view: