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Taiwan Quilt Festival – Taipei – November 2025 – Intro
2025 was such an amazing year. I was so honored to be invited to show my work as a featured artist and speaker, at the Kyoto Quilt Festival in March 2025. This opened more doors and I was again honored to show my work in a gallery at the Taiwan Quilt Festival in November 2025. At both events I spent time with talented artists from Korea, Taiwan and Japan. After so many years attending the Tokyo Quilt Festival at the Tokyo Dome (since 2008, to the last event in Jan 2020), I missed seeing those beautiful Asian quilts, and I missed my beautiful Asian quiltmaker friends! So these 2 trips…
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2025 – Annual Review
Today we had our annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest and Holiday Party for staff at eQuilter.com. We feel so lucky to have such a great crew to help us run the company. Plus they are a lot of fun during the holidays. This is not the whole staff, but it includes those who pulled out their Xmas sweaters for the annual event today. 2025 has been a busy year. As I have pursued more of a full time art career, on top of still having some duties as owner of eQuilter.com, my schedule has been very full. This year I gave 7 lectures, attended 2 weeklong retreats, was the featured…
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Kyoto Quilt Festival – March 2025 – Part 2
In March 2025 I was invited to show my work in a solo gallery at the Kyoto Quilt Festival, which was held in the Miyako Messe – the Kyoto International Exhibition Hall. This large building also houses the Kyoto Museum of Crafts and Design. Adjacent to the entrance to the quilt show, was an exhibit of kimonos presented by the craft museum. The exhibit was named “Enjoying the Seasons #14”. Quilt and textile artists are always keen to study kimono exhibits, because the traditional techniques are such an inspiration to us. Shibori detail of plum blossoms in this cream, gold, red and black kimono. The Japanese color aesthetic is often…
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Two Quilts for Durango
I have just returned from Durango Colorado, where I attended the opening reception for the SAQA “Balance” exhibition. My art quilt “Stardust Mothers” is in this exhibit, which will travel to other venues over the next couple years. “Balance” will be at the Durango Arts Center until August 30, 2025. Originally this piece was made for Sacred Threads in July 2022. Then it traveled to a quilt festival in France, another quilt festival in Birmingham U.K., and then spent 9 months at the DAR Museum in Washington DC. It was part of my solo gallery at the Kyoto Quilt Festival in March this year, and now will travel with “Balance”.…
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Kyoto Quilt Festival – March 2025 – Part 1
This is the first of a 3- part blog post about my trip to Kyoto. Last fall I started getting mysterious messages on Facebook from someone in Japan who I had never met. Eventually these messages were inviting me to show my artwork at the Kyoto Quilt Festival, which I had never attended. Fortunately, due to my many years of attending the Tokyo Quilt Festival, I was able to find a mutual friend to communicate with the show organizer Reiko to translate the messages. I didn’t want to presume….but I must admit I was delighted when I could eventually accept the official invitation…..and received the event flier listing me as…
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Kyoto Quilt Festival 2025 – Prologue
Having recently returned from the Kyoto Quilt Festival, I wanted to share some of this experience with you. But also I’d like to share the context of this event. During the early 1980s when I lived in Hong Kong working as a fashion designer, I often went to Osaka to source textiles. I did not have a chance for sightseeing, and mostly experienced a male-centered industry in smoke-filled offices. Starting in 2008, I started to travel to Japan again, to attend the Tokyo Quilt Festival. Honestly, it became an obsession, and I saved up my Star Alliance points all year to get a ticket to Tokyo. Eventually there was a…
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The NASA Connection
In 2016 I made two quilts for the exhibit “Fly Me To The Moon“, organized by Susanne Miller Jones. They premiered that Fall at the Houston Intl Quilt Festival. The quilts traveled 2016 – 2019, but the exhibit I remember most was when a small group were chosen to hang at the NASA JSC Visitor Center, along with artworks by rocket scientists and astronauts. It was at this venue that I met the quilting astronaut, Karen Nyberg. We had our photo taken together with a couple guys in patchwork astronaut suits. Later I met NASA seamstress Jean Wright, who has recently published a children’s book about her work. (Which we…
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First Ladies and the White House – Part 2
Please Note – if the images in your blog email are not high resolution – click through to the actual blog to see detailed images! During the Clinton administration (late 90s) I had the chance to tour the White House. It made quite an impression on me. The artwork, the architecture, the history….the ghosts of past administrations….our tour guide gave us a vivid history of each room we visited, and it made me want to learn more. I went from there, to the National Portrait Gallery, Ford’s Theatre, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Over the years I have picked up many books about the White House. The…
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First Ladies and the White House – Part 1
As we contemplate the possibility of having our first woman president in the USA, it is perhaps a time to look back on the women who have already served in the White House – the First Ladies. Over the years I have had several connections to the White House. My best childhood friend served on the Clinton Healthcare Task Force. (They were trying to create a national healthcare system, similar to other developed nations.) During those years I did a tour of the White House, which was much more accessible at that time. My architect brother works in Washington DC and his firm did the renovation/redesign of the White House…
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Fierce – Protector of the Forest
This small piece of textile art was created for the SAQA Spotlight Auction. It takes place April 12-20 and you can preview and bid from this page. I started this piece on the day Alexei Navalny’s death was announced. I finished this on the day of his funeral. I dedicate this piece to his memory – his courage and sacrifice for the people of Russia who long for Truth and Freedom. I spent 2 weeks in Russia 10 years ago and I have artist friends in Moscow, and artist friends who have fled the country, and then had to flee Ukraine. This war is deeply saddening. I can only hope…