I think the stuckness with this piece is NOT because the cellar is cold (even though it is) or a function of not having enough time (though quilting time has been precious lately), but a function of visual overwhelm.  While this could be the fault of my fabric selections (going for chaotic, here), I’m starting to think it is a vision problem.

I can’t quite take the piece in.

For one thing, six inches of pieced sections at the bottom fold onto the floor and are not visible from where I stand (roughly eight feet away) to look.  And for another, I find even what IS visible is not quite digestible.  I’ve dispensed the idea of depicting polar bears anywhere in this piece, but the top horizon has baffled me, until today, when I broke it down.

Am I just going for what’s more comfortable, here — that is, my preferred scale of three feet by two feet?  Am I short changing a process just as it’s about to morph into something brand new?

This is partly put in mind by recently listening to CDs that talk about how systems change — which is to say that when sufficiently stressed with new information, complex systems either breakdown or reorganize.

I’m not sure I can tolerate this quilt being disorganized for long enough to discover whatever the “new system” might be.   I have done this before — started large and then created four or three smaller pieces instead of resolving the big.

I will keep at it.