The Three Graces
The Three Graces series happened from a need to find figures to draw from, for my bird woman series. On a visit to the Baltimore Museum of Art, I discovered Dirk de Quade van Ravesteyn ’s “The Three Graces”, dated 1590-1612, and it spoke to me in numerous ways. This was the artwork that my first piece “The Three Healing Graces” is based on. The historical symbolism of the three graces varies from a number of positive and uplifting emotions, values and qualities that I wanted for my bird women.
In “The Healing Three Graces” , I included the bird heads of the Ruff, the barn owl and the Allen Hummingbird. Each bird represents a quality of joy, beauty and confidence. “The Fighting Three Graces” uses the heads of , the California Quail , the Northern Flicker and the Eskimo Curlew. These birds represent birds that are literally fighting for their existence due to climate change. I used freehand machine embroidery for the bodies and added hand embroidery for the heads.