Mother Earth Making Tortillas With Her Children
Making flatbread is an ancient practice all over the world, a warm memory of children and a staple of nutrition. Here Mother Earth's face embodies the colors and patterns of fire and corn, the essentials of tortillas. On her headdress, the figure is tucked into the curve of the graceful driftwood branch, making tortillas outdoors in comfort. Her indigo-dyed basket with madder edging holds the dough, and the figure is making tortillas, and placing them on a little handwoven mat of indigo and and madder-dyed handspun.
The face is handwoven in Merrill's Zati method, with two tones of madder-dyed yarn, accented by arched brow designs and cheek patterns of indigo-dyed and goldenrod-dyed handspun island wool. The headdress is of madder-dyed merino wool wet-felted into shapes, the natural edges arching above the figure and folded to drape on either side of the face. The arch above the figure is lined with needle-felted black merino in a waving triangle that extends around the activities and frames the whole scene.
