Design Concept

This quilt is based on a photograph I took in Antarctica in February 2020 at an abandoned whaling station on Deception Island, which is actually the flooded caldera of an active volcano. The whaling station was used to produce whale oil from 1912-1931 and then abandoned, leaving behind steel tanks and furnaces that corroded from the salt spray and the sulfurous steam rising from the water’s edge. They were further damaged by a volcanic eruption and resulting mud slide in 1969. I found some interesting patterns in the corrosion on the decaying equipment.

The image for Deception Decomposition #2 was cropped from one of these photos. The image was reshaped, recolored, and digitally painted. The image was duplicated and recolored again in complimentary colors (directly opposite on the color wheel). The duplicated images were rearranged to make a composition with repeating shapes and lines that continue from one side to the other. The final, whole design was printed on cotton fabric by Spoonflower. It is very heavily quilted, to the level of thread painting, with many different colors of polyester and acrylic thread. The backing fabric is from my Tye-Dye collection for Benartex. The binding strips are one-of-a-kind fabric, designed especially for this quilt.

Exhibitions:

• Little/Big, CQA Juried Show, Schack Arts Center, Everett, WA 2020, November 19, 2020 - January 3, 2021
• Visuals #4: Spring Quilt Festival Online, Mancuso Show Management, 4/28 – 5/1/2021 (Second Place, wall quilts)
• Photos Pixels & Pizzazz, (solo exhibition) Latimer Center for Quilts and Textiles, Tillamook, OR, May 3-June 27, 2021
• International Quilt Festival, Judged Show, Houston, TX, October 27-31, 2021
• Photos Pixels & Pizzazz, (solo exhibition), McLean Textile Gallery, McLean, VA, April 1-May 2, 2022

Publications

• None as of 04/19/2022