seeing stars

Roots, tendrils, and tangles often appear in my imagery and I render them literally. In more recent work, I couched bits of cloth and thread in stabilized twists and tangles. In this particular piece, they follow and wander against the outline of eight pointed stars.

I keep coming back to these stars. They are familiar imagery in the language of quilts and nature. Individually, each radiates and reaches outward - a familiar pattern of growth and bloom. Arranged next to each other, their points find, touch, and connect.

In a traditional side by side block arrangement, the star points reach outward from center and predictably find another. This is comforting. Repetitive pattern is visually comforting.

Working on talking about what I make. Writing everything down on the why and pulling out what makes sense is proving helpful and enlightening. I like to think I am a visual artist because I don’t know what to say, otherwise maybe I’d want to be a writer. But the act of writing it all out in words, also expands into more visual ideas. I feel encouraged.

[ Detail photos of I Felt A Connection, on exhibition in the Artist as Quiltmaker XVIII | 18th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Quilts at Firelands Association for the Visual Arts (FAVA) Gallery in Oberlin, OH. May 12 - July 12, 2018. ]