Design Concept

The theme of this quilt is the emotions and flights of fantasy evoked by time spent in a summer garden, observing natural forms at close range. This is part of a series of small works in which my process is very much like doodling with fabric, i.e.. the design was developed spontaneously, working directly on a painted background, with bits of fabric and thread. Each part of the design grew out of the last, just as a doodle grows to fill a page, when the mind is engaged elsewhere.

The background fabric was hand painted with fiber reactive dye. Bits of hand painted fabric left over from other projects were laid on the background in patterns, and bits of thread were arranged over them. Each layer of fabric bits and thread was machine stitched with various colors of thread. Several layers were built up on the background before the design was complete. Shadows of the first layers can be seen through the spaces in the top layers. The resulting, organic composition is more a landscape of the imagination than a real garden scene.

The embroidered composition was quilted in a freeform, organic design.

As a child, the margins of my school notebooks were filled with doodles. The title "Life in the Margins" refers to these margins.

Exhibitions:

• INTERRELATIONSHIPS NATURALLY, Exhibition of Contemporary quilts, 1993, Aullwood Audubon Center, Dayton, OH
  
• A CELEBRATION OF CREATIVITY, The Crossman Gallery, 1993, Whitewater, WI (AWARD OF MERIT)
  
• QUILTS '93: GREEN QUILTS, Quiltfest USA, 1993 (invitational) Louisville, KY
  
• AMERICAN / INTERNATIONAL QUILT ASSOCIATION SHOW, 1993, Houston, TX (AWARD OF MERIT)
  
• CONTEMPORARY QUILTS: FOUR VISIONS IN FIBER, 1994, (Invitational) The Stocker Center Gallery, Elyria, OH

Publications

• A/IQA QUARTERLY, WINTER, 1994 P. 6