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”.

The piece represents the generations of women who protect each other, and the planet. You can see the generations of matriarchs who disappear into the mists of time. I have included my great-grandmother from Sweden, in the top left corner.

Stardust Mothers started as a series of faces painted on a white muslin background. The faces were painted with Inktense and gel medium. Then the the rest of the details (the hair, the bodies, the Earth, and the roots) were added with fused raw-edge batik and hand-dye applique. Finally, the whole piece was freemotion stitched on my Bernina Q20. I use multiple colors of Aurifil 50 weight cotton thread.

I lost my mother in November 2023, after many years of caretaking as she declined. Over the decades, we took are of each other, and we were very close. She was close to her mother, as I am close to my daughter, so there is a long line of mother-daughter wisdom that has been passed down. The idea for this piece started when my daughter and I went to Sweden for 2 weeks on a folk music / Swedish fiddle trip. (She plays violin) On this trip I realized there were things my grandmother did that had to be passed down from her Swedish grandmother. For instance the tradition of cow calling (Swedish yodeling – “Kulning”) is exactly how Grandma Merle called us in for dinner.

Stardust Mothers (on the right) is a continuation of my Conservation series. On the left you see an earlier piece – “Rocky Mountain Poison”.

10 years ago the Gold King Mine spill released approximately three million gallons of toxic wastewater into the Animas River, turning the water yellow-orange and affecting Durango and other communities downstream. The incident highlighted the dangers of abandoned mines, and the issue of poisoned water supplies.

My friends in Durango begged me to make a quilt about the toxins that independent scientists were finding in the water, that were not being reported fully to the public. (One of those friends has been subsequently fighting a rare cancer.) I stitched the names of the toxic chemicals and elements into the quilt, while they read me the water report over the phone.

7 months later that quilt “Rocky Mountain Poison” was part of an exhibit at the United Nations in Geneva, on World Water Day. At the opening reception the cultural attache approached me, took my hand, and said “You have to keep making this kind of art with a message”.

I took that as my marching orders, and have been making textile art with a message ever since.

This artwork traveled from 2016 to 2022, was seen by 150,000 people in multiple venues. It then raised $4000 for the non-profit Earthworks, and was acquired by the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln Nebraska. I know that the story it tells will be kept safe there, for future generations.

The ripple effects of these textile messages continue to reverberate today.
Perhaps you will also make a quilt with a message some time soon.

Travel/Lecture Dates:
July 18 – Aug 30 – SAQA “Balance” in Durango, CO
July 27 – Aug 6 – Festival of Quilts, Birmingham UK
Sept 12 – SAQA “Camouflage” reception – Arizona Sonora Desert Museum – Tucson AZ
Oct 9-12 – Houston Quilt Festival – Soul Stories
Nov 2-6 – Art Quilt Tahoe – Independent Study
Nov 7-10 – Sacred Threads – Indianapolis – Art & Activism lecture

Nov 21-23 – Taiwan Quilt Festival – Taipei