Wilburt and the Whale?, 2025
The family lore says that Wilburt (or Wilburt’s dad or maybe it was his grandfather?) was rowing home with friends one night and came upon a dead orca whale floating on the surface of the ocean.
In those days, whale carcasses could be a valuable resource (blubber etc...) so, Wilburt decided to stay on the dead whale while the others rowed to shore to get the rigging to tow the dead carcass in for harvesting.
With only a bottle of whiskey and a candle (or was it a lantern), Wilburt waited on the whale hoping his friends could find him again in the dark.
There is a symbol at each corner of this quilt indicating the different elements at play: a hook, a bottle, a candle and a telephone. The phone represents how over the years, stories like these get told in new ways and before you know it, no one can really remember exactly what happened.
I used cream coloured cords for the 'water', a black and cream tee shirt for the whale and some plaid scraps for Wilburt. The shapes came together easily and as I played with different ways of telling the story, I found success in the simplest iterations. For the binding I used an old quilt, which i think I'll do again (so puffy!)