Almost as soon as I learned to piece quilts, I started designing my own.  This led to art quilting, which I love.  The gallery below is displayed from most recent to oldest.  Those showing a price are for sale.  Please contact me for information and sales.  Payment will be through PayPal with shipping and handling added.

Forever Free

Mel, a dark-morph red-tailed hawk, was hit by a car.  Rescued by the Raptor Center at the Nature and Wildlife Discovery Center in Pueblo, Colorado, she was nursed back to health. She had brain damage that affected her balance, so she could not return to the wild.  Then, she got cancer.  I met Mel as a volunteer was walking her in the sunshine as a break from the ICU.  She posed for a portrait that I have long wanted to recreate. She died about a year later. 

 

Creating Forever Free was the perfect opportunity to try new materials and texture techniques. I wanted her feathers to move rather than staying flat against the background. Remembering the life and strength in her eye, I wanted to set her free. Now, in the blue Colorado sky, she is forever free.

 

In the Spotlight IV

 

The play of the stage lights with the piano and the shadows fascinated me at a jazz concert. Timothy J. Fuss allowed me to use his photo to explore the light he captured with so effectively.  The shadows created a different dynamic in the movement of the artist and the beauty of his music.

 

 

They Persisted

A tribute to women who persisted in the face of power and oppression. Their names are sewn into the quilt.

Made from scraps gleaned at the “free table,” the quilt was inspired by Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman Sojourner Truth, Norma Rae Webster, Karen Silkwood, Sandra Day O’Connor, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Goble, Malala, Aung San Suu Kyi, Rachael Carson, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Barbara Jordan, Shirley Chisholm, and all the other women who, throughout history, were warned… Nevertheless, they persisted.

The quilt was submitted to Threads of Resistance and is included in their on-line exhibit under Free Speech.  For more exhibits see the organization home page.

  

 

L.E.O.  is a long-eared owl that I photographed at an open house at the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program. This rendition lets him be wild again.

I donated the piece to the Spot Light Auction for SAQA where it sold.

 

 

 

From Oppressed to Oppressor represents my personal journey to reconcile with my family’s heritage.

Five hundred thousand French Huguenots (Protestants) left France by the early 18th century following persecution and murder by the Catholic Church.  They dispersed to England, Holland, other European countries, and colonies in Africa, the Dutch East Indies, and North America.  Many settled in South Carolina, becoming farmers and businessmen, prospering as slave owners and traders.  Both my parents are descended from the Huguenot ministers who served the Huguenot Church in Charleston, SC.  The sister of one of my later ancestors married a slave trader.  Why are lessons of oppression unlearned?  The oppressed becomes the oppressor with little memory of their own, or their ancestors, suffering. The chains of slavery tear apart the highly symbolic Huguenot Cross; the Beatitudes fall from the points of the cross, the hearts at the base of the fleur-de-lis are chained, and the Descending Dove of the Holy Spirit weeps.

Oppressed to Oppressor was accepted in Sacred Threads 2017 and was one of the 20 works chosen to travel across the country for two years.  Here is a link to the 2017 exhibit.

 

 

Montreal Rose was inspired by a picture I took at the Montreal Botanical Garden on a rainy morning.  I tried to capture the colors of the blossom and the raindrops standing on the petals.

Montreal Rose was juried into Contrast, an exhibit sponsored by the Front Range Contemporary Quilters at the Parker Arts and Cultural Center, Parker, Colorado.  The show runs from May 2 to July 9, 2018.

 

 

 

In the Spotlight I and II started as a concert at the Rochester International Jazz Festival.  The stage lights reflected off of the inside of the piano splitting the colors of the spotlights.  With permission of Tim Fuss, the photographer, I altered the photo,

had it printed on cotton sateen by Red Dog Enterprises, quilted and beaded it.  The beading enhances the colors of the lights.  In the Spotlight I’s first showing is A Treasure of Fiber Exhibit by the Rocky Mountain Creative Quilters at Bas Bleu Theatre in Fort Collins, CO, November and December, 2015. In the Spotlight II was finished in 2016.

 

Red Sky grew out of Imagine Red ( see below).  I had some of the fabric left over and wanted to explore the theme further.  The piece is free-motion machine quilted and the ocean waves are embellished with beads.

 

 

 

Windows is a sculptural piece where I experimented with a double-sided fusible, moldable interfacing.  The fabric was hand-dyed by Judy Robertson.   I used a serger with metallic threads in the loopers to bind the edges.  I found the rock at the gift shop at Skyline Caverns in Front Royal, VA.  This was a fun piece to create.

 

 

Morocco was going to be a blue quilt.  As you can see, that plan did not work.  In auditioning the fabrics for this exercise in turning a photo into a quilt, the blues just did not work.  Inspired by photos from Jardin Majorelle in Marrakesh, Morocco, the shapes morphed as the collage went together.  There is another, blue quilt on the horizon.   We took lots of pictures.

 

 

 

Teal Spring was inspired by a poem written by Kitty Jospé that is now titled “Spring”.  The quilt was shown in the Winter’s End show by the Rochester Area Fiber Artists.  Kitty also chose the quilt to be on the cover of her book Mosaicq. 

 

 

 

 

The companion piece to Teal Spring is Imagine Red. Based on another poem by Kitty Jospé now called “Gathering Lines”.  It is the title poem to her self published book, Gathering Lines.  Again, Kitty honored the quilt by putting it on the cover of the book.   Working with a poet in collaboration was such a joy. 

 

 

 

 

 

In Expanding Universe,I explored 3-D quilting by building a möbius strip universe.  My inspiration was a piece of hand-dyed cotton by Judy Robertson.  It took two years to gather the courage to cut into the fabric.  However, I really love the results.  Two more are still rattling around my head.  This hangs in my living room. 

 

 

 

 

 

No Fracking In My Backyard was my attempt at visualizing the damage that could be done to the Finger Lakes region of New York if the state allows hydrofracking of natural gas to go forward.  The hills and lakes of the region are beautiful and enjoyed by New Yorkers and visitors alike.  My understanding is fracking pollutes air and water, the heavy trucks tear up roads and create noise in small, quiet communities.  Generally, labor is imported from other drilling states, limiting the number of local jobs created.  This quilt has been on display in the Sierra Club tent at GreenTopia in Rochester, NY, 2011.  It was an invited work at Spoken Threads: Craftivist Fiber Art at the ArtRage Gallery in Syracuse, NY, 2013.

 

 

We traveled to Yellowstone National Park a few years ago.  I was stunned by the colors of the hot springs.  One that particularly captured by imagination was Grand Prismatic Hot Springs.  I bought a postcard with an aerial picture by Larry Meyer from Montana.  He granted me permission to use his photo as inspiration for my quilt Grand Prismatic I.

 

 

 

 

 

I also took my own pictures at Yellowstone.  The view of Grand Prismatic Hot Springs is much different than the aerial perspective.  You see the algae up close, and see the change of colors as the water changes temperature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first art  quilt was Night Music, a quilt inspired by the 2005 Rochester International Jazz Festival.  The music from those wonderful musicians mixed together and rose through the darkness.  This quilt remains in my personal collection.