Fin Whale, Bressay Sound

In 2013 on my month long voyage around various Arctic Seas I saw five different species of whale and visited several whale centres, heritage whaling sites and museums with skeletons of whales on display.  A series of quilted textile pieces evolved from sketches and photographs of the  skeletons, maps both current and historic of the locations where I saw the whales and other photographs taken on that voyage.

These five textile pieces are whale flipper skeleton shapes made of freehand machine embroidered, quilted, digitally printed fabric.  As they developed I was struck by the basic similarity of the flipper structure to our hand and arm, but was also intrigued by the differences – between them and us, and between the whale species.  For example how the chunky compact flipper of the Orca/killer whale contrasted with the long tapering flipper of the baleen filter feeding humpback whale.

For those who like detail

Fin whale in Bressay Sound sailing out of Lerwick, Shetland

Humpback whale in Skjafandi Bay off Husavik, Northern Iceland

Orca off Heimaey in the Westmann Islands South of Iceland

Beluga in the White Sea off the Solovetsky Islands

Minke off the North Coast of Norway approaching North Cape

All five pieces can be seen in the Textiles section