Fiber Art by Susan Hensel
That was the case with this piece! This piece, which won an AWARD last night at the Benedictine Center, started as a mistake! I was stitching something else when I ran out of thread and the color was back ordered for weeks! So, I had what could be, at the very least, a large swath of “wasted material.” No biggy. It’s just felt and thread. But it also was hours and hours of time on the machine. So, I hung on to it. I actually HUNG it on the studio wall to think about it. Was there a way to use it?
A week or so later, I noticed the smaller pyramidal shape that I had temporarily put in another composition. It too was a piece where random occurrences had interrupted the flow. I saw their relationship and had the epiphany that led to: CHOICE POINT (SAUL)!
Why that title? Even before that call for art came out from the Benedictine Center, that intense visual tension where the points nearly touch struck me as a “conversion” moment. I immediately thought of the Biblical story of Saul, who was struck blind and instructed, by God, to go to the home of an enemy and wait: to be healed? to be killed? He did as told, although he could have chosen otherwise. Ultimately he changed and became the apostle Paul, rather than languish as “wasted material.”
Big choices. Little choices. I guess that’s life!
Choice Point (Saul) Sculpture by Susan Hensel
This wall piece overwhelms with color, inviting the viewer into the egoless zone of pure sensation! It is a sculpture made textiles with light bending thread.
