Inner light has been a recurring theme in many of my quilts. It interests me both as a symbol of enlightenment and as a purely visual phenomenon. This quilt was created for a special exhibition of contemporary quilts at the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City, NY.

This is one of a series of quilts in which three dimensional, constructed tucks are incorporated into a string pieced background. The background was pieced from fabric dyed in a spectrum of pure rainbow colors, along with areas where these pure colors gradually fade to black. The divisions of space in the background are unevenly spaced diagonal and triangular areas. While there are areas of contrast occurring along the seams of the diagonal areas, overall the contrast is subtle and appears to emerge and fade along any given line.

Each of the fifty-nine ½" tucks is constructed from two different fabrics. The right sides of the tucks are made from fabrics dyed in a gradation of pure hues, which include the entire spectrum of colors. The left sides of the tucks are gradations from the three primary colors (turquoise, yellow, fuchsia) and the three secondary colors (orange, purple, green) to black. The use of color and value (light to dark) gradations, and the twisting of the tucks from side to side, create the illusion of movement across the surface of the quilt, and light emerging from within the quilt. A radiating, string pieced border surrounds the three dimensional center panel. All colors of the spectrum are used in the border. Strips of these colors alternate with strips of black, in the bottom and side borders. In the top border strips of rainbow hues alternate with strips dyed in a light to dark gradation of blue/violet.

In this quilt I made use of a traditional 19th century technique, string piecing. By using solid colored fabric dyed in gradations and by incorporating three dimensional tucks, it has taken on a very contemporary, high tech look. The original drawing for this quilt was done using Corel DRAW! a computer assisted drawing program. The background, tucks, and border were each drawn separately, and then layered over one another on the computer screen to form a final design.. Scroll down for pictures.

Background, tucks, and border drawings
are layered together for the final design.