After introducing myself I described my working pattern as  DDT.

Determine what you want to do

Do the work

Triumphantly celebrate the completion of the project

Sometimes deciding what I want to tackle is the hardest part of the whole process.

I divided my talk into five categories, because I discovered that I return again and again to many subjects.

1. Nature and  Science.      My mother was a science teacher and  she had a profound influnce on what I became interested in too.  The first quilt that I am showing is  Totem Poll and I did it for my father as he did a lot of wok with the  Native Americans in Alaska when I was growing up.  This quilt show all four of the  earth elements that they believe in.  Air is represented by the Eagle at the top.  The Wolf represents the land.  The  tribe celebrates two types of water-salt and fresh- thus the whale for salt water and the frog for fresh water.    I did  showed several other quilts that showed my use of animals as subjects for my work.

2  Water : The next  displayed work was Ice.   I seem to go back to this subject repeatedly  and perhaps that is because of living here where ice and snow are so much a part of our lives- I don’t know,        Spring Thaw was the next work on the wall.   This work shows how I was starting to add different materials to my quilts.  The opalescent color is created with the use of floral plastic.

This work was followed by Ice on Vincent   a piece that I did just last year.

Next came   Deep Stars  I was a scuba diver and the ocean has always been fascinating to me.  When I learned that along one of the hot water wholes in the Mariana Trench supported Fuchsia colored star fish , I just had to do a quilt to note that wonder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deep Jellies is also a study of the ocean and my love of texture.  I hand dyed the lace and the jelly fish are spray painted for extra color.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Briar Patch is another example of my love of plants and  texture.

Blooming Bacteria    After visiting a display of Elizabeth Bush’s work where she used the dyed slides of diseases to build her pieces I did a close up of dyed bacteria  too.

When I saw a shot of bacteria, I remembered seeing  pond water under a microscope in Mom’s Biology class and so I did this work- Pond Water.

3. Rocks Canyon’s Create Towers.   I did this work after a trip down the Colorado River in the  Grand Canyon with my Dad.    This trip resulted in 8 works based on that experience.   My Grandfather was a rock hound as was Mon and so we where always picking up rocks and collecting them.

Canyon De Chelli  was also the result of a trip.  I went with two other quilters who are also crazy about rocks.   I had to do this quilt because I was fascinated buy  the fact that I saw three  layers of man kind here.  The Anasazi- a very old Native American culture was built into the canyon up high.  Then the  natives that had returned to the canyon and were living there when  the Spaniards came-the lower bigger buildings.   And to my eye the stain on the top rim of the canyon looked like the New York City sky line.

Whip Shock Hill.  This work is a geogical sight that I visited with Marty on our way to Maine.  The size and the up heavel f the rock I find amazing.

Asurite  is based on a small stone that I have enlarged.  I love building up and playing with the effects I can create with fabric.

Granite  Grannies   I see faces and bodies every where.  This quilt shows the three ways I know of altering the surface of fabric.  There is acrylic paint on the faces, the black and white, machine drawing to show the detail and it is dye painted from the back to get the blues.   There were  a dozen works in my “Spirits All Around Us” series.

Motherhood maze was done to show how sometimes being a parent can be.  I used sculptures from Europe-  The Veins of Walendorf  to represent Eurasian and the fertile stage of motherhood.  The Myna birth goddess to represent the beginning of life.   And the African mother pole  to show how we are tied to the little one for a while after birth.

Generation Whispers was a tribute to my family of women.   I am the center with my mother  and mother in law above me and all four grandmothers stitched in too.  The my daughter with my grand daughter  at the bottom.

4.ology is a mix of people and plants.  It is also my first trip into felting as a way to build with fibers.  There area over 90 faces in this work.

Blooming Branch  I can always count on my love of plants to help me out when I need a subject for a new work.  I have done lots of branches and this one has a sister work that is very like it as I had to build two limbs before I was happy  and so I created a second background and completed it too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Briar Patch is another study in plants and my love of texture.  I added berries made from Angelina to this work too.

 

Grounded   I enjoy stamping  on fabric and this work shows lots of fall leaves that I stamped  a few years ago.

Pomegranate II.   As the title suggests there are several works with  the pomegranate as the subject.  This work along with the others is stenciled.  I designed and cut the  stencils myself and  enjoyed toe process.    I have several others subjects using stencils in my collection of work.

 

Tulip Bed.  This work was my first attempt at an l regular  edge.   I also did this work as a challenge as my friend Barbara gave me the starter fabric that she has painted.  I will give it to you if you promise to cut it up she said.  And I did.

Five Jacks.    I am now mixing felt with applique work to represent my plants.  I am then stretching the works so they will be flat.

Call Crows.  49” 34”   This work came about due to an experience too.   I stared in the Hilton in Auburn one fall when I was at a workshop at the Schweinfurth.  I along with my room mate was awakened at 4 in the morning by the calling of the crows outside our windows on the third floor.  I just had to comate that event and this quilt  does that.

5. Text   We Can 72” X 74”   This quilt is my declaration of intent to do what I can to help the endangered animals of our plant.   I machine wrote the names of all the animals that  were threated at that time.   Five of them have been removed from the list and two have become existent.

Glyph II    31” X 36”     This is the second graffiti based series.   I love letter forms and I am playing with them  at this point.  There are  nine quilts based on the word OWL  in this series at this point.

Fractured Glyph  32” X 41 “  is another of the glyph series.

Label Quit.    This is my third quilt that uses labels like a crazy quilt.  The first one was done in 1985.  It took me 144  weeks to do this one as I did one 8” block while watching the news each week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I learned that I go back and revisit many of the same themes over and over in my work.   These five areas are only  a few of my interests.