Dijanne Cevaal

Over the last 14 years I have travelled to many places in  the quest to promote quilting as art and in promoting Australian quilt making as art. Travel does not only take you places, but often it also makes you look at the place where you find yourself living.For me it raised many questions as to what i could lay claim to  culturally and spiritually given that I was a migrant to Australian shores ( and yes I arrived by a boat) with a memory of my childhood in another land and in another language.I also found myself drawn to cathedrals devoted to madonnas not as a belief imperative but simply because  they  seemed to throw out a challenge. I found madonnas in Syria at Saidnaya which fostered the thought that what kind of image moves other peoples spiritually? Many cultures have an image adorned by a kind of halo and so I chose this form to express my thoughts and concerns. I made her the same size as myself, and of course she is feminine- she looks out into the world offering a challenge. She is called a sentinelle because she is not truly a guardian but a watcher who sees the many wrongs in the world and who challenges you to think how you might be able to do better and to be more proactive.I am touched that the sentinelles and their form have touched so many women here and overseas.

 Sentinelles- Artist Statement

I made the sentinelles as a fusion of landscape inspired by Fred Williams and Judy Watson, a look at the Australian landscape so different to the European landscape, and a tip of my hat to my European heritage.The land has a pervading spirituality and mystique which invites using my personal language of lace patterning and the tenuous connecting threads of lace and texture created by stitch. I feel a connectedness with the land that derives from having lived on farms all my growing life, albeit farms in two totally different countries, and I have struggled  to make sense of any connections; it is as if there have been two loves, but neither has been "the" love. One I was taken away from too soon and the other I came to too late. So I have to forge a new connection, by looking at how other artists have created their connections with the land and looking at their visual language to express their connection and then finding my own language. 

I am using the hominid form to suggest a sentinelle, but I use the word sentinelle rather than guardian as the word guardian implies looking after but also taking care of. Sentinelles are merely guards, there is nothing proactive about their watch- they can only watch and alert others, to what they are watching, the eternal watching bystander. It is for the viewer or others to act on what they see or don't see, it is for us to act and  be proactive.

I am weaving together imagery of things and myths I love, that make up my own personal language but yet also try to express my connectedness with the land.I have chosen a simple form that suggests human beings, but also other spirit keepers from different societies and a connection to my  Zeeuwse past, the lace caps worn by my great grandmother and aunts. The idea of caps became intertwined with images of Byzantine Madonnas, and the head wear of ancient Romans.  I have made the Sentinelles the same height as myself though some grew with the stitching process, to acknowledge I am also responsible. The image came to encapsulate a lot of things I wanted to say  about the place I find myself in in Australia, but also my migrant past and indeed the European past of my family.My interaction with this, for me new land, yet ancient land is predetermined by what I bring to this land and how I connect with it. The interaction brings with it concerns for other parts of the world because that is where I have come from.

I would like to see my sentinelles in all corners of the world, big and small. I like the idea that they will  be in many places watching, reminding that we must take care, that the earth is not and endless resource and that we must think of the future not for ourselves but for every living thing that will come after us

EARTH SENTINELLE

Hand dyed & printed cotton, hand and machine stitched

165 cm h x 65 cm w

2011

The Australian landscape is often depicted as red:

 simply red with the ribbing of dunes or the cracking of earth. Yet closer inspection reveals a whole other world of existence; flora and fauna that are strange and beautiful. The kangaroo paw plant is a great survivor in fringe land, it's strangely shaped flower petals tall amongst the spindly undergrowth.

It is popular with florists and they make good cut flowers.

Next time you find yourself looking at a kangaroo paw flower in a bouquet, think of the lands where it might grow- try to imagine the songs of this land, the tracks you might  make and the stories you might create.

This sentinelle arrived without warning and without intention and yet she is the most Australian of them all.

THE AUBERGINE TRACKING PATHS SENTINELLE

Hand dyed & printed cotton, hand and machine stitched


165 cm h x 65 cm 201 w

  Many people inhabit our land but the first people, indigenous Australians have a deep affinity with the land.  They walk and sing the land, it fills their spirit and they  take care of the land- they are the custodians. We, the aftercomers should learn that lesson; in loving our land and learning it's tracks and songs  we too can walk paths on this land and as a people take care of the land.  My history is one of farms and growing things and this is also informed by an understanding of the land though a different understanding. We might do well to understand the spirit of each of the lands we inhabit, know it's nuances  shapes and needs.        

OCHRE EARTH  SENTINELLE

hand dyed and printed cotton, hand and machine stitched

165cm h x 65cm w

2012

She watches all things Australian- our dry landscape despite small patches of forest, an eastern seaboard with tropical rainforest, dwindling water resources, a drought stricken and sunburnt land. Her body is encrusted with bilbies as it is thought that bilbies are responsible for the vegetative health of desert fringes and that without bilbies the desert fringe will disappear. Water is the heart of our land, slow rivers flow through the land giving sustenance. They dry up in summer's shimmering heat to become rocky paths across the land. We have to take care with water, it is not a never ending resource, it must be used frugally, but we seem to waste more water than ever. There are parts of the world where water is as precious as gold, the only thing that can sustain life. Bilby populations have declined since European incursion and their survival has been forced into the desert. They are an endangered species, a clear sign that we are not taking care. THE BLUE SENTINELLE Hand dyed & printed cotton, hand and machine stitched 165 cm h x 65 cm w 2011           The Blue Sentinelle is one of reflection and empathy,cool  and thoughtful- what is she watching? At present the world  is in a bad state- when was it last like this? It is the sentinelle that was there in the beginning, in the waters and the sea watching life as it emerged, watching it evolve, watching as  humans squander the earth's resources, watching as we must draw deep within ourselves to have human empathy for the disasters we have created, watching as we must find solutions  for the disasters of our own making. She stands cool shimmering, her body encrusted with corals and urchin shapes. She reminds us that there is a beginning just as there is a          beginning to taking care and doing. THE RED SENTINELLE Hand dyed & printed cotton, hand and machine stitched 165 cm h x 65 cm w 2011

   She reminds me of Demeter- the earth mother- but also the watcher of her daughter- she could not prevent  Persephone's seduction by the seed of pomegranate and the other world, the underworld. It was Persephone's own

action that meant she had to spend time in the underworld. It is a reminder to be close to the earth, to take care of the  earth, if tilled with  care and love it delivers great fruit. But if the tilling fails then the earth will be waste just as Demeter laid the known classical Greek world to waste whilst she searched for her daughter.  We are laying to  waste our earth in searching for resources and wealth and are squandering our connection with the earth.