(Click on photos to enlarge and to read the rest of the story.)
Quilting Bee
I chop my life up into bits, incongruous and varied:
struggles, victories, tragic loves, the day that I got married.
Clashes create beauty as pains mix up with cheers,
making a lovely pattern as each new piece appears.
In stories as in patchwork quilts, all bits are not roses.
Part of the beauty comes from the pain that it exposes.
We put our art together, fragment after patch
and no pattern emerges if all the pieces match.
A convenient truth of works of art as well as that of life:
beauty’s found in perfection, but also found in strife.
Sweet berries come with brambles and each rose has its thorn.
Both great passion and great pain predate the time we’re born.
Perhaps pain is the awful price that we have to pay
to experience the pleasure of when it goes away.
So with the ugly fabric that finds a place to fit
when contrasting beauty is stitched in next to it.
Life is a lovely story, but not all of it is writ.
Why were we created if not to add to it?
In taking all the pieces we’re provided with,
We take part in creation by adding to the myth.
Prompts today are patterns, chop, clashes, cheer, incongruous, convenient and brambles.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
I like the mishmash of images with your insightful poem.
LikeLike
Mishmash is an appropriate term.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The quilts are amazing. And your poem is beautiful Judy
LikeLike
Thanks, Sadje
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re welcome 😇
LikeLike
How wise, Judy! I fear you’re not receiving the emails sent past few months. Has your address changed? Mine is the same, so please email me either way, hooray😍
LikeLike
Dianne, send emails to jubob2@hotmail.com. If I had received them I would answer immediately. Also tell me your email you’ll be sending from so I can put you in contacts.
LikeLike
Some of us have lived “splotch-work” lives, with criss-crossed patterns of bumpy broken lines. Any beauty in that comes from behind a viewers’ eyes, not to mention, heart and mind. By the way, I like this life fine–no matter what is or is not–at least at this time.
LikeLike
I’m so glad. Every time I get down, which isn’t often, all I have to do is go out into my own back yard and just observe the amazing interconnection and beauties of nature. Or consider the intricacy of the human body. So amazing that we were ever born and are still alive!
LikeLike
Beautiful quilts! I particularly like the mask quilt, but I’m in awe of the talent shown in each of them.
LikeLike
Yes.. She was amazing. She made that one expressly for us as we had a large mask collection. Her quilts sold for $1000 up, but luckily we were able to trade one of our lamps for it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Delightful, and the images are terrific.
LikeLike
Life is like a patchwork quilt, isn’t it! Love it, Judy.
LikeLike
Pingback: Creative Juice #311 | ARHtistic License