I remember my grandmother’s quilts. They were not lovely, but pure utilitarian weigh you down and keep you warm coverings. With a collection of fabrics salvaged from years of clothing, those quilts reflected an ethic that I find recurring in my own experience-- accept what you are given and work with what you have. My grandmother’s quilts told stories and evoked feelings, connecting me to a family’s history. That connection has influenced a need to express something unique to myself and my time.

About 1996 I began to dye and paint my own fabrics using Procion MX dyes. I happen to love it—whether I am mucking about putting color onto fabric any way I can think of, or meticulously marking its surface, all becomes play as well as work. Though sometimes I reflect to myself that dye work suspiciously resembles doing laundry…  It’s taken awhile to build a stash of fabric that gives me the greatest possibilities for expression, and occasionally commercial fabrics still figure in my work. I think of fabrics as found objects—found objects that happen to need ironing.

The method of construction I favor is termed “piecing” in traditional quilt making parlance. Cutting and seaming together the variety of fabrics and shapes builds the structure of the quilt. Working freehand in cutting and designing a composition allows me a challenging freedom of expression.

The final touch to my work is the machine quilting. What to do to the surface of the quilt is sometimes an overwhelming choice to make. In some cases I intensively texture the surface with stitching. Sometimes I want the quilting to be as quiet as possible so as not to interfere with what the fabric is doing. Occasionally I want the simple stitched line to appear much as a sketched line that has singular importance in a space.

I like what I’m doing in all its aspects, from playing with color and pattern on naked fabric, to cutting into the fabric that results. From formulating an idea, to methodically sewing it all together, I like the consideration of something intangible. The attempt to invoke the intangible in my work becomes a challenge that grabs me every day.