Sally Ride Science

Les Éditions de Saxe featured a pattern of my quilt What We Keep (2008) in the Fall 2018 edition

Re-imagined weaving patterns provide endless inspiration.   Can hardly wait to start this series! Soprano Bass Tenor Alto

I recently had the pleasure of accepting and completing a commissioned piece for a couple of Kansas City art collectors and friends of mine.  I am typically hesitant to accept commissions, but was honored by this one.  The piece is titled Monsoon and was inspired by my experience of Arizona monsoon rains while visiting in the summer of 2017 for my 50th birthday.        Monsoon required learning how to complete inside corner miter binding   Monsoon 

original sketch, completed on December 10, 2017 I began working on the piece May 1, 2018 in Ellensburg, Washington two of the foundational checkerboard squares front and back of one the diagonal squares my progress as of the end of June 2018 (1/4 of the finished top, lower right corner) As of August 5, 2018, this quilt is halfway complete at 4,050 pieces. Top completed on September 1, 2018.  90 x 90 inches, 8,100 pieces.

Prelude   Only recently have I come to full terms with the church's role in my spiritual life as well as my life as an artist.  Growing up, the church was one of my first and only consistent encounters with aesthetic beauty - the order and seasonal colors of the liturgy, the banners, the stained glass windows, and the rich musical history, dating all the way back to Johann Sebastian Bach and beyond.  So it makes  sense that as an adult, my creative medium is quilt-making, the elements of which are fabric, piecing, color, and composition. In 1998, the same year I started my first quilt while living in Yountville, California, I returned to the Midwest after an eight year post-collegiate stint living west of the Missouri River.  I landed at my parents' house in a small college town in west central Illinois.  It was a far cry from the Napa Valley, but with the proximity of the college, I succumbed to both internal and external pressures to achieve a full-fledged conventional career

On a bitterly cold day in February of 2013, I had the pleasure of meeting Krisitin Congdon at the Iowa State Museum in Des Moines, Iowa.  She was accompanied by Teresa Hollingsworth, my friend and co-curator of the show on view at the museum,  The Sum of Many Parts,  after it's year-long tour throughout China.  The exhibit had taken Teresa and me, along with four others, to Shanghai only a year earlier.  Teresa had mentioned my work to author Kristin Congdon, who later chose me, along with 3 other artists, for ethnographic chapters in her book,  The Making of An Artist: Desire, Courage, and Commitment .  My chapter is featured as part of Congdon's exploration of commitment as it plays out in the lives of various artists, and is based on her in-depth interview with me in my Iowa City studio. The book is a delightful and informative read.  It gave me welcome insight into the personal lives and struggles of some of my favorite artists.  Congdon's book transformed many of the q

A nice feature in Quilt Country Les Éditions de Saxe ,  which includes a pattern of Smokehaus Rose (2010).