Hi, my name is Jane, and I'm a Libra. I love symmetry, balance, and spirals in nature and in art: Labyrinths, vortices, staircases, tendrils, whirlpools, fiddlehead ferns, seashells, whorls. In 2015 I brought my husband to Maine to see George Sherwood’s kinetic sculptures, including the mesmerizing Memory of Fibonacci. Two months later we moved here.
Construction Details:
SPIRAL is my own design and by far the most challenging panel because I was building a spiral pattern using concentric circles. I spent many days experimenting with various color combinations and fabric sizes to create the illusion of a spiraling curve. I added the black yoyos (gathered circles) with red buttons to create a visually redundant design.
It was a frustrating and labor-intensive process. I never gave up. I pulled strength from the chambered nautilus’s evolution which mirrors my struggles creating SPIRAL as well as struggles with my ever-evolving life.
Construction Details:
SPIRAL is my own design and by far the most challenging panel because I was building a spiral pattern using concentric circles. I spent many days experimenting with various color combinations and fabric sizes to create the illusion of a spiraling curve. I added the black yoyos (gathered circles) with red buttons to create a visually redundant design.
It was a frustrating and labor-intensive process. I never gave up. I pulled strength from the chambered nautilus’s evolution which mirrors my struggles creating SPIRAL as well as struggles with my ever-evolving life.
The Chambered Nautilus
Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1858
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea
Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1858
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea
Copyright Jane McLean, 2023. The Chambered Nautilus is in the public domain.