These teabag art quilts do more than form a landscape. They become a part of the landscape. The art quilts pulsate with energy and light; the kinaesthetic quality intensifies when the wind softly blows on them, and the light plays across their surface.
In the same way, I feel I belong to the landscape. Here, I am at total peace in winter; not an icy European winter, but an African winter of golden-brown grass, flaming orange aloes and pale blue dusty skies.
July: Ingci
Kholwane either describes a red-billed hornbill or a flamingo, either of the two possibly migrating into the Swazi regions during this time.
And know. That is July’s phrase in the winter triptych — the middle word of the three-part sentence. June says Be Still. August says I Am. July is the hinge of trust between them. The place where stillness becomes comfort.
The three winter quilts together form the image of Nyonyane, the granite mountain above our home in Eswatini. July is the middle panel — the widest part of the mountain’s face, the mountain rock, a place for the eye to settle. It is the part of Nyonyane that simply is solid and patient.
Igshaan Adams, the South African artist whose meditative weaving practice I have thought about often throughout this research, speaks about being on autopilot at the loom — a state where he can separate from himself and create a mental space for healing. His 2016 tapestry is titled I Was a Hidden Treasure and Then I Wanted to Be Known. The title comes from the Hadith, referring to the motivation behind the divine creation of humankind, but Adams uses it to speak about something more intimate: the deep desire each of us carries to be known — by the world, by those we love, by ourselves.
His Sufi master told him that creativity is like a place where water drips slowly from a tap. Given time, moss begins to grow. Then plants. The thing starts in the middle and spreads outwards, slowly, organically, without announcing itself. You do not force it. You let it come.
Knowing arrives the same way. Not as a conclusion you reason your way towards, but as something that has been growing, quietly, in the place where your attention kept returning.