Quilts exist simultaneously as art, craft, and decoration. They are both sentimental and utilitarian. They begin, like all crafts, with material, hands, and tools. They take their form from their function: a need for warmth, and durability. Their emotional power comes from the intimate way that people interact with them, and the nostalgia they embody. They find their voice as art through the intention of their makers and the context of their existence. Like all art, their meaning is evolving as intentions and contexts change. Quiltmaking today is not the pragmatic necessity that it once was, but it continues to occupy this elusive space within the realms of art, craft, decoration, sentiment, and utility.

Quilts reinvent the things that we discard. Sewn mostly from second hand men’s shirts, the checks and stripes and fine cotton broadcloth used in my quilts are immediately recognizable as the fabric of corporate America, Cut, pieced and painstakingly stitched by hand, these materials are transformed to become part of a tradition far from the modern offices from where they came.

The designs of my quilts come from my love of geometry: lines, grids, vanishing points, and parabolas. They begin on graph paper but develop through exploration of what is technically possible and a desire to make something within these parameters that is new.

My quilts are sewn they same way that quilts were sewn a hundred years ago. They are meant to be touched, and sized up for warmth and weight, to beautify and be loved. While they can be recognized as kin to quilts of the past, they are not meant to conform to expectations. They are meant always to surprise.

* Commissioners can donate personal materials to be worked into their commission, adding an extra layers of meaning and memory to their quilt.