BILL STEARMAN

2022

commercial cotton, hand-dyed cotton
63”h x 56”w

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Sometimes, my bouts with depression bring dreams of drowning – the sensation of drowning.
I actually feel myself sinking deeper and deeper until there is barely a glimmer of light at the surface.
And it just feels right.
But only until my lungs swell and I think they’re going to explode.
Then terror sets in.
At what seems like the last minute, I am drawn to the light and I swim toward it.
First one kick and then another.
The kicks come faster as the light gets brighter.
And I break the surface gasping for air, sputtering out far more water than I thought I had swallowed.
Always it is just in time.
And always I am glad to be alive.

This quilt is about the feeling of NOT drowning – of floating in the light instead. I know that I will sink again.
But I also know that I will again find the light and float above the darkness.

For a while.