Storytellers of Canada-Conteurs du Canada
The 2009 Story Save Quilt
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The Appletree in the Apple

This beautiful apple tree in the apple is my new logo. And what could be more fitting.

Three apples fell from heaven, count 'em. And the pommier is the tree of life, or tree of wisdom, representing the Storyteller. So the teller is in the story and the stories are in the teller.

The idea for an apple logo came out of my role as 'the apple keeper' on my partner's 1OO acres paradise where I lived up till last fall. As the incarnate Johnny Appleseed I received school groups and the family crowd to Claude's few small orchards for apple picking and the telling of apple stories.

When I was growing up my father supplied his children, (ten of us) with a bushel of apples a week, when they were available, and something comparable in other seasons. We were allowed limitless apples. And my Uncle Gabe had a few small orchards of apples and pears we liked to pick clean, or eat clean, I mean without even leaving the tree. So I have eaten up to four, five, six apples a day in some periods of my life and believe that's where I accumulated so many stories in me. Because remember, as kids we were eating the seeds and all...

So the concept for this image was mine, but the exquisite design is the handiwork of Wakefield artist Heather Burrill. Heather's divine and profoundly gentle spirit is apparent in everything she touches. And in addition to being a very gifted and multi-talented artist she also teaches wilderness skills. So as a note of interest I will reveal that she allowed me to pay part of my bill with animal skulls, (from my sufficiently interesting, amateur collection).

My very talented and devoted cousin Cecile is the petit-point master who crafted this square for me while I was preoccupied with our sugaring tour. She has twenty-five years experience and hundreds of delightful such pieces to her credit. I am eternally grateful for my cousin's generosity, in coming to my rescue to create this square at the last, last minute, and for sharing her great talent with the Storysave project. She was paid for her loving work with maple syrup and cousinly indebtedness.