Celebration of Life by Ann Fahl

Price: Not For Sale  Size: 64 x 85 inches
Additional Images: 1  2  3  4 

The idea for this quilt began with a greeting card from a family member. A group of Japanese cranes were lined up, all standing on one very large fish. Ann kept this card for a long time, before creating this quilt. While designing, this collection of images became very personal. She wanted to use swans as the main figure, but because they have very short legs, they were not stately enough! So the whopping cranes became the main choice. The fan in the background is an image from Winona Lake, where fans helped to keep everyone cool on hot Sundays at the Tabernacle. The fish is a symbol of the big fish that she never caught while fishing at the end of the pier. For all the many hours she fished there, she only caught tiny pan fish.

Here three whooping cranes are standing on a large fish. She experimented with many different background colors for the quilt, and decided on the warmth of a hand dyed yellow cotton background. The birds are machine appliqued in place, using a wide variety of white fabrics; chintz, dress weight, drapery weight and quilting cottons. Because the white birds didn't have enough contrast with the yellow background Ann added a pieced red fan behind the birds. The fish is created from many scallop shapes of turquoise blue cotton, which are fused then machine appliqued.

When this quilt was conceived and made, Ann thought she had quilted this piece heavily. By today's standards, this is only moderately covered with quilting stitches. The quilting design enhances the bird's feathers and scallops on the fish. A repeated scallop is repeated behind the subject, and it adds a wonderful flow and texture to fill an otherwise empty space.

The quilt was Ann's second national prize winner. It has been pictured in almost every quilt publication, Country Living Magazine, and included in the Land's End Contest data base in the Library of Congress.

Now in the collection of the Racine Art Museum