Descended From the Stars

This artwork was made for and juried in to the Dinner@8 exhibit Affinity, which premiered at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, October 2015.  It will tour with the exhibit through late 2016.  It was selected to be in an article on the exhibit in Quilting Arts 15th Anniversary issue, December 2015.  As well, I wrote a long article for Machine Quilting Unlimited's  "Challenging Quilts" series on the making of this piece, published in the January/February 2016 issue.

What is life but a labyrinth, travelling around the sun and through the seasons?   When the call for entry came I knew the quote by Mirza Khan, a teacher at my alma mater San Domenico, was perfect.  When my sons were small, they walked around the sun on their birthdays at Montessori School, so the sun symbolizes our journey as we travel around it and through the seasons each year.  From my early love of calligraphy to quilts, textile art, dyeing and collage, the quilt embodies my art journey, but also symbolizes where I have been, who I have become, and the people, places and things most dear in my life.

ONE LIFE

We have descended from the stars.   We have risen through the forms of thousands of animals. We have passed through the lives of our ancestors, our grandparents, and our parents.  And now we have been born into the moment of our supreme existence. We have a life. What will we do with it?

Mirza Khan

San Domenico

Materials and Techniques:  Artist-dyed and commercial cottons, wool-poly batting, polyester and decorative threads, perle cotton, Mistyfuse, textile paint, acrylic ink.   Hand-dyeing, fused collage, dip-pen lettering, couching, free-motion quilting.

Size:  40 x 40 inches

In the collection of the artist.