Artists Statement
Printable Complete Resume
For as long as I can remember, I have expressed myself through artwork. My formal training was primarily in design, drawing, and studio painting. After many years of painting, sewing, and experimenting with other media, I discovered that fabric, used as a fine-art medium, best expressed my personal vision. Since 1983, I have been a quilt maker, i.e., my work is constructed from layers of fabric stitched together with batting or other filler between the layers. I love the tactile qualities of cloth, and the unlimited color range made possible by hand dyeing and other surface design techniques.
The focus of my work is on the qualities of color, line, and texture, which will engage the spirit and emotions of the viewer, evoking a sense of mystery, excitement, or joy. Illusions of movement, depth, and luminosity are common to most of my work. The inner glow is created by graduating my colors and values from light to dark. Both my geometric color studies and my more organic, curved seam abstracts are inspired by visual impressions collected in my travels, in my everyday life, and in my imagination.
Although some of my quilts include pictorial images, my work is most often about seeing, experiencing, and imagining, rather than pictorial representation of any specific object or species. My intention is to focus on positive energy and depict that in my work.
In addition to my ongoing series of colorful fantasy works, I am also making quilts from images scanned and manipulated in the computer and printed directly on fabric with archival inks.
I intend for my quilts to be seen and enjoyed by others. It is my hope that they will lift the spirits and delight the eyes of those who see them.
I am constantly learning, as I imagine new ideas and then develop the techniques to create them in cloth. As a teacher I believe that the magic of art lies in our heads and in our hearts. I love sharing my techniques with others so they can share their magic with me.
Technical Information
My quilts begin with 100% cotton fabric. The fabrics are dyed, painted and printed by me, or are from the collections of fabric that I have designed for Benartex, all of which are based on my original, one-of-a-kind, hand-dyed fabrics. This creates my palette of colors and visual textures.
Most of my designs start with small pencil sketches on paper. These are scanned into the computer (Corel Draw) and refined until I have a clear idea of what the shapes will be. I usually do a value study in black and white, and I often do a color study as well.
The design is then enlarged on freezer paper, using a transparency and an overhead projector. The freezer paper pattern is cut up to make templates for cutting the fabric. The templates are ironed to the fabric (shiny side to the wrong/back side of the fabric) and a ¼" seam allowance is added on all sides.
In my curved-seam designs, the pieces are joined using “Applipiecing”, a technique I developed in 1989 to make curved seams fast, easy, and accurate.
I consider the quilting stitches to be the finishing touches on the work of art, not just a way to hold the layers together. Most of my quilting is “free-motion”, i.e. the feed dogs on the sewing machine are lowered and I use my hands to move the quilt sandwich under the needle. I call it drawing with thread. |
