Yesterday we drove to La Grange and the Texas Quilt Museum to drop off two pieces for their upcoming "Texas Grand Masters" exhibit. Whee!--suddenly I'm a Grand Master! Who knew? They accepted "Turmeric and Wine" and "Mae--Caught". The exhibit will open March 19 and run through June 21. So, if you're anywhere near the Texas Coastal Plain, head on down to La Grange--it's wildflower season and the drive will be lovely.
While there, we enjoyed seeing "Layered & Stitched', a retrospective exhibit of prize-winning art quilts from the 1970s through 2019. Most of these were quilts I had seen in books and magazines, but not in person--so much nicer to get up close and check out the details. We'll be taking our out of town guests to this exhibit in March. The trip gave me a chance to buy backing for the quilt I'm working on now at the shop next door to the Museum, The Quilted Skein. And though I did not "need" any more yarn, I succumbed to desire and bought a couple of skeins too beautiful to bypass.
The staff at Art Quilt Elements has requested a small donation piece to be sold in their gift shop during that exhibition. I frantically searched through the carnage in the studio and finally found one remnant square of each type used in "Suspended--Final Curtain". It wasn't hard to combine them into one 12 x 12 square, then to embroider in the same way as the large piece.
I mounted it on stretched canvas because the old fabrics are pretty limp. It presents well, I think. In any case, it's the last remnant, so I'm done with that.
And now I'm working on a piece commemorating the"Sea of Mud" (El Mar de Lodo), which is described in great detail by Gregg J. Dimmick, MD, a local avocational archeologist and pediatrician in his 2004 book of the same name. This is the story of the retreat of the Mexican Army after Sam Houston's victory at the Battle of San Jacinto. Texas was now a Republic. This fine army had not previously been defeated. They had marched more than 1500 miles from home. They didn't know whether their President and Commanding General Santa Anna was dead or taken prisoner. And then it started to rain. For days.
This all took place within 25 miles of Eagle Lake, on what we call the Lissie Prairie. It is flat, rice farming land near the San Bernardo River, which has many branches and floods easily. With few good roads and diminishing provisions, the generals tried to follow hand-drawn maps to safety, but the mud was too deep. Horses and mules drowned in the mud. Soldiers could not find firewood to cook their meager handful of cornmeal rations. They, too, died in the mud or the river. The wounded could not be transported in wooden-wheeled carts. They died. The generals made it out alive and eventually marched their surviving men and camp followers down to the coast for transport back to Mexico; they later filed detailed (and often self-serving) reports about the campaign. For the most part, the retreat from San Jacinto and the Sea of Mud episode were forgotten.
Dr. Dimmick and a group of his fellow avocational archeologists, with the help of property owners, the Houston Archeological Society and the Fort Bend Archeological Society conducted excavations in the Lissie Prairie in the late 1990s, discovering many artifacts from the Mexican Army. No human or equine remains have survived there, but harness brasses, uniform medallions, bayonets and rifle parts, buttons and horse and mule shoes were found and documented. History happened right here!
So I am working with lots of brown fabrics, small bits of color, lots of texture, and some plastic horses and soldiers to give some idea of how it might have been. Stay tuned.