Design Concept

In May, 1990, Malinda Jones, my closest friend lost her 21 year old daughter in a tragic car accident. Several times in the months following the accident, Malinda and her husband visited their retirement property in Montana, and each visit seemed to help in their healing process. In October, 1990, my husband and I accompanied them on one of their visits. Their property is in a beautiful green valley, near Yellowstone, surrounded by four snow capped mountain ranges. Cranes, swans, and geese all migrate through the area. When I returned home, I had the idea for this quilt.
My conscious intention was to make a quilt about what it would feel like to fly among birds migrating over the beautiful landscape of Montana. They do not represent any particular speciesof bird, but are birds of the imagination. As I was piecing the birds, I realized that they could also represent Malinda, her husband, and their younger daughter. When the quilt was completed, I saw that there was a fourth, almost transparent bird, flying with the other three, in the background. The quilt was a gift to Malinda from her husband on Christmas. Malinda saw the fourth bird the day after she hung the quilt in her livingroom, and made the same connection.

The bird shapes and the background were string pieced with fabric dyed in both chromatic and value gradations. The birds were appliqued over the background, with the back of their wings partially three dimensional.

The use of a variation on the traditional quilt pattern "Flying Geese" on the back of the quilt, reflects the bird theme of the front, and is my tribute to the creativity of the many anonymous quilt artists of the past. This is the first quilt in which I experimented with paper-pieced flying geese in a curved template, a technique I have since taught to hundreds of my students.

Exhibitions:

• American/International Quilt Association Show, 1991, Houston, TX (Award of Excellence & Viewers Choice Honorable Mention)
  

Publications

• Quilting Today, April-May, 1991, p. 62
• Backart: On the Flip Side, Rafalovich and Pellman, PP 58-59
• Note Cards, Chilton Press, 1991
• Quilters Newsletter Magazine: January/February, 1992, pp32-33
• The Magical Effects of Color, 1992, Joen Wolfrom, C&T Publishing. P. 68
• The Arts Advocate, 1993, April p. 12 (New Zealand)
• Listener, May 1-6, 1993, P.9 (New Zealand)
• Quilters Newsletter Magazine, September 1994 P. 22
• Quilting Today, Special 50th issue, Editorial Choice Quilts, Fall 1995, p. 33
• Art Quilt Quarterly, SAQA, 2022, Issue #26, p. 15