JOAN MIRO: 2 CONSTELLATIONS

While studying Joan Miro’s work, I became intrigued by his Constellations series.

Due to the Spanish Civil war and WW II the artist and his family were without electricity for an extended period of time. This probably drew the attention of the artist to the nighttime constellations. Others argue that Miro probably was looking to escape Earth during this troubling times when so many lives were lost. His concentration on the sky at night and the planets and stars of the Universe helped him to avoid reflecting on the horrors of humanity.

He painted his windows blue and his ceiling full of stars and that was the beginning of the series of 23 Constellation paintings. Now that part of Europe is going through these dark times again, Miro’s constellations have been my inspiration to also take my mind of the terrible situation in that continent.

I painted a blue background and sewed thin black lines between which I fused symbols, including a moon, stars and eyes, so characteristic of Miro’s work.

Finally I sewed stars and as I can lose myself in our beautiful clear night sky, so I lost myself in sewing these stars. I ended up with 6 fused red and 42 stitched black  stars, not counting the quilted stars in the background.

The quilt is finished with a facing.

Detail view: