This is one of a series of quilts in which three dimensional, constructed tucks are pieced into a patterned background. The background fabric was painted with fiber reactive dyes and it portrays memories of three days of hiking in 1989 in Carnarvon Gorge National Park, Queensland Australia. This dramatic gorge is filled with exotic vegetation, some of it prehistoric and found in very few places on earth. In a number of locations throughout the gorge are found 10,000 year old Aboriginal rock paintings in the red and yellow ocher colors of the soil. After a long, hot day of hiking, we climbed into a side canyon called the Moss Garden and found a cool, green, peaceful place where both the spirit and the body could rest. This quilt is about the experience of being in that place. The patterns in the background fabric represent the foliage, rocks, streams, and waterfalls of the gorge.

The Moss Garden	Hand painted background fabric

Each of the 1/2" tucks is constructed from two different fabrics. The fabrics for the left sides of the tucks were dyed in gradations of greens, blues, and mauves of the exotic foliage. The right sides of the tucks are the red and yellow ocher colors of the Aboriginal rock paintings. The use of color and value gradations and the twisting of the tucks from side to side create the illusion of movement and light across the surface of the quilt

A radiating, string-pieced border of intersecting color and value gradations draws the eye into the center of the quilt. A print fabric in the patterns of Aboriginal bark paints was used on the back of this quilt.

Scroll down for exhibitions and publications