Remember This Day by Mary Ann Nailos

Remember This Day, 63'' W x 28''H

Have you ever had a day that you remember everything in vivid detail? Sometimes they are momentous occasions like weddings, graduations or funerals. Then there are some that begin as rather ordinary but turn out to be extraordinary. A time when you are truly living in the moment, when you can recall what the air smelled like, the call of birds and the crunch of snow beneath your boots.

My piece Remember This Day tries to capture just such a day. I was home to help my mother after her recent operation and had made plans to go for a walk with a friend from high school. We hadn't been really close, but she had always been one of the most authentic people I have ever known. She had metastatic breast cancer but today was a good day. It was November in the Northeast, so it was cold and snowy, but we walked and talked, the past and present blurring.She wore a red hat, and I wore a purple jacket. We laughed a lot. As time wore on, we got colder but neither of us was ready to go home. I got a call two months later that my friend had died.

I have thought about this day a lot because I was sad and missing my friend but happy that we were able to spend that day together. I wrote this haiku in response to it:

Snow falls on our heads,

We tell each other stories,

Remember this day.

The idea for the piece had been rolling around in my head for a long time. I knew I wanted to incorporate the haiku but had trouble working out the rest of the piece. 

 I used a washable glue resist and acrylic paint to print the haiku on the background.

I did an exercise of sketching on a roll of painted and stitched cloth that I learned from Shelley Rhodes in a Stitch Club workshop on textileartist.org. That formed the basis of the piece. While taking a walk with the roll of cloth and a pencil and pen I would stop at intervals and sketch what I saw in front of me.

 I kept the palette subdued to give the November vibe, the only real pops of color the lines of red and purple to represent our walking. Little snippets of our conversations were stamped along the roll of fabric. I added a lot of hand stitching which allowed me to sit with the piece and contemplate my feelings as the work progressed.

I am pleased that this piece was accepted into Blurred Boundaries because it is deeply personal, and I think it successfully captures the day for me.