A Tapestry of Memory

Today we share a tapestry made by Marion Hearfield. Marion says:

If an heirloom can be only forty years old, I choose my LA tapestry.

In November 1980 my husband's new job took us to Los Angeles for a year. Our children were 6 and 4, so quite portable, and went to local schools in Culver City for part of each day. But what was I to do, 8,500 miles from all our home stuff, apart from being a homemaker in our rented and furnished condo? I kept a journal of events, photographs, visits, receipts and leaflets that occupy five fat ringbinders, and I designed and stitched this 34" x 28" tapestry, in wool on canvas, of our year in LA.

After we got back to Stroud (just before the winter of 1981, which seemed horribly cold after southern California) I folded it away and it was not until I moved house four years ago that I finally got it out and hung it on a wall. Every element of the picture has meaning for my family: the bacon cheeseburger from Jack-in-the-Box, the beach, the Santa Monica mountains (a familiar sight in many movies), the tar pits in Griffith Park, the Hollywood Bowl concerts with a police helicopter searching overhead, the Almaden wine jug (now a lamp base in my bedroom), the neon signs and, of course, Disneyland; we went there a lot.