For a few months I’d had a vague idea of this quilt, but it was only after my ex and I officially separated that I could begin. Thus, starting this project coincided with the beginning of a new phase of my life. Something like this may have come to be regardless, but I doubt that it would have developed such depth. My best art is often sparked in difficult times.

Early on during the process I heard the song Rainbow by Kasey Musgrove and a wave of emotion flooded through me. I wept because just like a rainbow after a storm, my new life is both promising and fragile. Overwhelming in its brand new potential. I experience such surprising hope, in the midst of loss, grief and regret.

A storm leaves marks. A rainbow can be fleeting.

To me this work captures both in the way that the vibrant colors sing and contrast against that deep, dark blue.

My favorite design discovery along the way was the idea to use contrasting complementary colors for the center of the plus shapes. The plus shapes are arranged in a circular rainbow blend. So too are the contrasting colors arranged approximately in a rainbow blend, but with opposite colors to the plusses themselves. That extra level of contrast increases the intensity of the work. Here I was inspired by Van Gogh, whose brush strokes often included complementary color accents for a similar effect.

The finished quilt is 76” square. The blue background solid fabric is Peacock by Tilda Fabrics. I backed it in green linen and used wool batting to give it a full body. Simple Baptist fan quilting makes a soft, durable finish that also reminds me of rainbows.

And I used on of my favorite basics from Cotton & Steel for a subtle binding with a touch of metallic pizazz.

The quilt looks quite at home in my house, and I was tempted to keep it. But, you know, I don’t think that I’ve ever opted to keep my most emotional projects. There is something about letting go of them that is poignantly meaningful to me. It is feeling all the feelings, sharing them with you and others and then setting them down in someone else’s life.

Really, fully letting go.

This quilt is called Rainbow Over Head. It represents my choice to believe that no matter what storms come in my life, it is possible to find a rainbow again. This is not the trite message that everything all works out and that everything is always somehow okay, but that beauty and love exist alongside the real loss. Like color in the darkness or a rainbow after a hurricane. I acknowledge the existence of both in my life. And I choose to be happy.

Rainbow Over Head was gifted to someone who has been a rainbow to me this last month. Rainbows are not meant to be captured, pinned down and stored away in cupboards. They must fly to really be alive, even if they fly away.

May all our rainbows burn bright and long.