Primordial Sea

While living in Texas fossils fascinated my children, and we spent many happy days in the creek beds of Austin searching for evidence that North America was once under the sea. This quilt is what I like to imagine a Primordial Sea, abundant in jewel toned marine life would look like.

this quilt is whole cloth hand dyed silk painted with textile paints 89" x 62" 2005

This quilt won 1st place Innovative at Pacific International Quilt Festival 2006 and 2nd place Painted Surface at IQF World of Beauty 2005

If you would like to see how this quilt was made look in the May Archives.

Fauna

This is my strip for a group quilt that is being made with my art quilt group that formed when I lived in Austin. Now our members are in Austin, Dallas, Glendale (soon to be Chicago), Portland, Maine and Tokyo, Japan. This quilt is a follow up to two previous group quilts on a similar theme, a photo of Flora can be seen on the list of 2002 IQF Winning Quilts and Second Nature is going to be in this years IQF In Full Bloom exhibit. this piece is painted with Tsukineko Inks.

Bird of Paradise

This was my donation to the IQA auction last year. It is painted silk. The sky was painted with textile paints and the bird and tree were painted with Tsukineko inks, with gold metallic paint details. The edge is finished with couched colored and gold cording. I like to use other things besides traditional bindings to finish the edges of my work. I wish I knew who bought this. I like to know who my work is living with.
14” x 14” 2004

There's a Place Called Mars...

Looking at Mars mission photos, I was struck by the contrast between scenes of a rocky, lifeless planet and the rich, fanciful portrayals of Mars in popular culture. I prefer a fanciful Mars. A place, where flora and fauna from the pages of Ernst Haekel’s book, “Artforms in Nature”, fill a Ray Bradbury inspired world and a 50’s Sci-Fi alien femme fatal watches a song, sung by my sister in girlscout camp to the melody of “The Snake Charmers Tune”, weave it’s way though the landscape.

this quilt is whole cloth painted with textile paints 37" x 62" 2004
If you would like to see step by step how I made this quilt look in the May archives

This won Judges choice at IQF Houston, Judges Choice and Viewers Choice at the Glendale Quilt Guild Show

My sister, who's work you can see on my links, learned this song in Girl Scout camp when we were kids in Maine. the song goes like this.

There's a place called Mars,
where the ladies smoke cigars.
Every puff they take
is enough to kill a snake.
When the snake is dead,
they put roses on its head.
When the roses die,
they put diamonds in their eyes.
When the diamonds break,
it will be 1968.

I love to hear when some one else knows this song or a close variation (not the one about france and ladies under pants). When I was in Houston I had people from all over New England, upstate New York and Pennsylvania tell me they learned this song in the early 60's. Another woman from Tennesee jumped rope to it in the late 50's. It was also known by someone in Colorado and another from Southern California from the late 50's. A woman from New jersey said she knew it with tulips and I think it ended in 1969.

Lichen

My son had a fascination with lichen when we lived in Texas. It was everywhere in so many different beautiful forms. Lichen is a class of organisms in which algae and fungi live in a symbiotic relationship as one. They are found throughout the world but are unable to survive where the atmosphere is polluted, so they are good indicators of clean air. The large lichen on this quilt was made by painting cotton batting and stitching the texture into it. The edge has a fine gauge wire sewn into it to give it form and dimension. The yellow lichen is painted cotton batting. The smaller thread lichen were made by stitching on Solvy. The other lichen is painted and melted Tyvec.
22” x 22” 2004

This won Best Machine Applique at the Glendale Quilt Guild Show

Painted Batting

Before I made Lichen I experimented with painting on Warm and natural cotton batting. I wanted to find out what the surface would look like, would it absorb the paint like a sponge or would it sit on the surface. It seemed also like it would make a nice soft surface for embellishing by hand. I have these two, I made a third but sold it at IQF’s silent auction a few years ago (without photographing it first, so I can’t show you it)


I was happy to find that the batting did not soak up the paint like a sponge, and they were easy to stitch and couch on by machine and bead by hand without falling apart.

Tree of Life

I was drawn to creating an image of the Tree of Life, which is a creation myth from many different cultures. The universality of this symbol was important to me as well as the idea that the location of the biblical Eden is in present day Iraq. I wanted my quilt to have the quality of a multicultural folktale using symbols from nature and various religious traditions. It is a whole cloth painted quilt, using Jaquard and Lumiere textile paints and Tsukineko inks for the faces, hands and feet.
53” x 61” 2003

This quilt won an Honorable mention at IQF Houston, and Road to California, Best of Show at the Glendale Quilt Guild Show and won Best Machine Workmanship at PIQF

Asenath

This quilt is part of the national traveling invitational exhibit "Women of Biblical Proportion" curated by mother and daughter team, Ruth Harris and Chantelle Cory. "The exhibit portrays the rich diversity of female biblical characters through contemporary art quilts.

I chose Asenath, she was Josephs wife, as in the well known “Josephs Technicolor Dreamcoat” She was the daughter of an Egyptian priest. Asenath was also of interest to me because this is my sisters middle name.

This quilt was painted with Tsukineko inks and D’uva Chromacoal powders (for her skin) on raw silk. 22” x 22” 2003

Saint Michael Overcoming Evil

The central image on this quilt is from an engraving from the renaissance, called St Michael overcoming Evil. When I saw this image it brought to mind our present history; one that President Bush has drawn parallels to by referring to our fighting the axis of evil. Tsukineko inks were used to paint the main images and backgrounds. The wings are painted with Lumiere paint. And colored pencils were used to add subtle shading to the oval border.
18 1/2” x 29” 2003

Madonna and Child

This small quilt was the first piece I painted with the Tsukineko inks. It is whole cloth, machine quilted and embellished with beads and gold cording.
9” x 10” 2002