 Artist's Statement
Fabric and fiber have always been a part of my life but I didn’t discover quilting until I was a young house bound mother of with 2 small children. I quilted very traditionally, following patterns exactly. It never occurred to me to venture outside the box. Over the years, I tried all the quilting techniques – piecing, appliqué, trapunto, and became proficient at hand quilting. My quilts were all given as gifts to family members and friends.
Then there came a 10 year period when I put away the fabric stash and all the unfinished projects and returned to school for a masters degree, then a business career to help put our daughters through college. It wasn’t until they were established in their own careers and homes, and we were in the process of moving that I rediscovered the part of me that was packed away. We expected to be moving to a smaller home and most of the fabric, patterns and unfinished pieces could not come with us. I was at that time that I realized just how much I had given up.
But with the move came the chance to start again – and in a new unstructured direction. I discovered that there were new ideas, tools and techniques to learn, and so many great teachers.
The last nine years have been a creative journey for me as I have focused more on creative energy and less on business career progress. I still want to try every technique and cannot focus on any one style yet. So my quilts have no common theme, nor am I patient enough for series – maybe someday!
I am also an avid photographer, so it has been a natural progression to use my photographs as the basis for many of my quilts. Recently, I have started to experiment with abstract design and larger formats. Most of my pieces are irregular in shape and contain hand dyed, painted and commercial fabrics, and various forms of embellishment.
As I look at my quilting now, I don’t think I could ever go back inside the box. |
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