MORNING MANDALA I 1994 43 1/2” diameter
After achieving escape velocity from the midwestern farm and community where I was raised, I began making my own quilts from start to finish in the strange world where there was no group to help with the quilting.
I began experimenting with color changes and all kinds of variations in traditional patterns. Once, when I was quite ill, I had the first of a few dozen specific, brief, mandalic “visions” appearing first thing in the morning upon waking. The quilts with “Morning” in the title are exact renderings of what I saw.
These quilts were my first attempts at piecing circles and they carry the quality of technical exercises, rather like scales and arpeggios to a musician. I was skeptical about sewing in circles, then, but it seemed imperative to attempt to render these vivid matinal images in quilt form. |