Fiberworks - A Celebration of South African
Fiber and Textile Artists

Title: My Fynbos Tuin / Garden

Description: This piece portrays NATURE in my direct environment with some indigenous plants and birds.
It consists of many different techniques and is very rich in texture with a strong 3D element.
I used numerous Bernina machine feet to create different effects and textures.

Title: Global Connections

Description: Skies are lit up by lightning,
Wind turns water to deep dark depths,
Massive waves explode in the air,
The universe is brought to life,
Elements connect to the centre of the earth,
Where fire warms us from beneath.....

Title: Inner Change - Die Weduwee se Kruik

Description: he process of losing your love of your life is a most painful and life changing experience.
After 21 years I tried to portray our love, hope for our future and closeness...
The tragedy in 1998 ...the darkness...future breaking into pieces....
And then very slowly new growth ...a new branch growing from my head with new leaves...new grandchildren...
Love conquers all.....

Title: Transition in South Africa : Growth versus Destruction

Description: GROWTH : This quilt starts with some of South Africa"s History since 1837 and takes you through up to the time in 1994 where South Africa underwent a huge transition to a new Democracy.
The black and white blocks are representative of the apartheids era and is also transformed in this quilt parallel to the theme.
Most of the SA presidents are portrayed in this quilt eg. Nelson Mandela as well as very important Historical buildings, informal living, cities, our democratic values of Society, visualising growth and goodwill for everyone in SA.

DESTRUCTION : In 2015 the active destruction in SA gained momentum with the painting and breaking of our national monuments. The corruption in the leading party was and is enormous as well as in their leadership. Our country was being sold out. At the bottom of this quilt are words representing the issues of the day : Respect, Farm murders,Eskom, Water, Poverty, Crime, Religion, Corruption, Values, Democracy.
This quilt is still very relevant today and consist of very rich textures and 3D elements.

In 2015 it won first in the Art category at the SA National Quilt Festival

Title: Ocean Splendour

Description: This quilt was made by invitation for the 2011 KwaZulu Natal Quilters Exhibition with the theme SPORT in Durban.

Title: Magical Moments in Germany

Description: A three week tour in east Germany with its beautiful architecture was my main inspiration for this artwork.

Title: Circle of Friends
" As die WINDPOMPE eers om Gariep begin draai...."

Description: This artwork started out with a Circle of Friends theme and as you can see, my friends and I are having a ball on those magnificent birds, flying over my valley, up against the mountains around my farm dam... as free as only birds can be.....a fantasy flight at its best.
Then came the Bloemfontein quilt festival with Windpompe / Windmills as a logo and this artwork grew to where my farm dam became the Gariepdam in the Freestate and I also added 9 maroon little windmills.
The dam, the lawn around the dam, 9 smaller birds and 7 trees are all done with richly textured fibre art and different techniques.

Title: Global Message

Description: Playing around with fabric and doing experiments sometimes pays off. This artwork just happened instinctively. The main tree happened in 2 days while I was trying to stitch down very small leftovers of a previous project without putting the little pieces under netting or water soluble fabric. It worked well just stitching a grid over the pieces.

Title: Cry my Beloved Country

Description: I made this quilt at the peak of the "Zuma Must Fall" era It represents a leader deceiving his country by selling out his country for self enrichment. Farm murders were the order of the day. While the masses of concerned people marched to Cape Town and else where,I was busy stitching all the crosses in black and white by hand... At the bottom of this piece, I captured some relevant newspaper articles with decoupage and stitched them between black netting, also capturing SA's downgrading to a lower financial status. I used words to express my disgust of what is happening to my beautiful country I love so dearly : Master of chaos; Genocide; It's open revolt; Economic terrorism etc.

This artwork is still relevant more than ever before...

Title: Olive Celebrations

Description: Being an Olive farmer, it certainly was my privilege to make an artwork to celebrate many aspects of olives. The main focus is the very old olive tree in the center, the small worker's cottages, a new olive orchard with the Hexriver mountain range in the background... The worker's picking the olives, bottled olives, greek salad

Title: Duet of Fruit trees

Description: The 2 fruit trees were originally developed for some of my classes. After a while I decided to join the orange tree to the fruit tree...
That resulted in exciting new growth and form !
The trees themselves are original, rich in color and texture and a good example of fibre art.

Title: Hitchcock Thrillers

Description: This piece was made for a tri nations challenge, Movie Directors.

Mari Claasé