Mother Earth Reading To Her Children
Mother Earth supports a figure riding on a swan and reading a book. If other figures were near, she would read aloud to them, a little like Mother Goose, whose origin dates to the late 18th century in France. Mother Earth's indigo-dyed face with white eyelids and brown eyebrows, is animated as if she is telling the story from the book. The figure on the top is reading a book called The Spindlewood Tree, named for the shrub Euonymus europaeus, European spindle, which has straight, very hard branches which were used in the past as spindles for spinning wool by hand. It has richly-colored red berries and in Europe has an association with fairies. The story by Charlotte Comeras is based on a poem by Rose Fyleman, who was famous for her children's stories about fairies. This was Susan Barrett Merrill's favorite story to tell when she taught in Waldorf schools.
Mother Earth's face is handwoven in Merrill's Zati method from natural white Maine island wool handspun into strong single-ply yarn and dyed with wild indigo. Her lips are madder-dyed wet felted merino. Her eyelids are handwoven from handspun white and brown island wool. Her face is wet-felted onto figure is lightly wet-felted on a wire armature, then clothed in handspun natural and indigo-dyed island wool. She an antique lace tiara-like bonnet frill.