Quilt National 1999 :: Quilt National

Miriam Nathan-Roberts
Spin Cycle , ©M N-R
66 by 71 inches.
Commercial and hand-dyed, hand-painted, and airbrushed fabrics; machine appliquéd and machine quilted.

Artist's statement: This quilt is the latest in the Interweave Series started in January 1983. Every time I finish one I think it is the last of that series, but then yet another beckons me. I have been interested in structure and illusions of depth all my life. My father was interested in bridges, and Pittsburgh (where I grew up) is a city of bridges. He often pointed out the differences in their structures to me. I have no real depth perception because my eyes don't achieve fusion (one is near-sighted and the other is far-sighted.) Most of the fabrics were hand dyed by me. All of the pieces are individually airbrushed by me. The quilt was named by my friend Nancy Halpern.

Ruth Garrison
Overlay 4 , ©RG
54 by 54 inches.
Hand-dyed and commercial cottons; screen printing, machine piecing, machine quilting.

Artist's statement: Overlay 4 contrasts the rigidity of the grid and the controlled value gradation of the background with the playful unpredictability of irregular strip piecing.

Dirkje van der Horst-Beetsma
Cobblestones, ©DH-B
52 by 61 inches.
Commercial and hand-dyed cotton, silk and polyester fabrics; freehand cutting, directly stitched on a foundation, and machine quilted.

Artist's statement: My goal in playing around with fabric is to tell a story. This quilt is a walk in the garden on a sunny day. You see the colors of the flowers, shadows, trees, and the colors of the stones. The stones are old and can also tell us stories.

Linda Gass
After the Gold Rush , ©LG
26 by 21 inches.
Silk crepe de chine hand painted using acid dyes, water-based resist, salt, and alcohol techniques; machine quilted with monofilament and rayon threads.

Artist's statement: I grew up in California and have spent countless hours exploring the beauty of its mountains and deserts. In this quilt I have tried to beautify an unnatural landscape through a play of color and texture on silk. The landscape is I-5, a major transportation artery, crossing from the California Aqueduct, the man-made river that moves water from north to south and irrigates farm fields in what once was a desert. This is the second mining of California and hence the name of the quilt.

Connie Scheele
In the Shallows , ©CS
53 by 46 inches.
Hand-dyed cottons; machine pieced and hand quilted.

Artist's statement: After doing a number of River Rocks quilts, I did a few quilts of foliage and grasses. This quilt is an integration of the two, and is reminiscent of the northern Wisconsin lake country that is very important to me.

Jane Sassaman
Seeds and Blossoms , ©JS
43 by 43 inches.
Hand-printed fabric; machine appliquéd and machine quilted.

Artist's statement: We have a dense garden in our small city yard. Every year we grow several varieties of angels' trumpets, also called jimsonweed or thorn apple. This plant is poisonous, yet incredibly dramatic. It has huge, white, sweet-smelling trumpet blossoms, dusty gray-green leaves, and wonderfully evil looking prickly seed balls the size of Christmas ornaments. I absolutely love them so it was an obvious subject for a quilt.

Faye Anderson
Dreams , ©FA
48 by 60 inches.
Artist canvas, fused cotton fabric, and candlewick thread; free-motion machine stitchery, hand and machine quilting.

Artist's statement: It is not that encouraging to be voted Most Talented in a high school that didn't offer a single art class, but at age 17 the gap between fantasy and reality does seem that wide. There's a lot of room to dream, and sometimes the dreams do come true. This quilt was created in a reflective mood. I haven't been in touch with anyone from the PineCrest class of '63 for many years, but I enjoyed rereading their yearbook quips and notes while stitching the portraits and hope that they have shared my good fortune.

Tim Harding
Swimmers , ©TH
80 by 60 inches.
Silk and cotton duck fabrics; reverse appliqué, layered, stitched, cut, rest stitched, and cut again.

Artist's statement: In an effort to unify form with content, the representation of two underwater swimmers in a pool is partially obscured -- but also revealed -- by my reverse appliqué method. This accomplishes an abstracted, broken-up image somewhat like the refraction of light that occurs in water. I use an iridescent silk which is reflective, like water. The surface texture is a broken-up wave pattern such as you might see in a pool. A slight use of perspective is accomplished by a subtle foreshortening of the torsos and elongation of the arms. Light/shadow and figure/ground relationships are also used to create the illusion of depth.