This quilt is a visual expression of the winter snows on the flat open
prairies of Northern Illinois. This is also one of a series of quilts
in which three dimensional, constructed tucks are incorporated into
a pieced background. The fabrics used to piece the background were hand
dyed in value (light to dark) gradations of blue and turquoise. The
swirling pieced background expresses the idea of the granulated snow,
being blown into drifts and dunes in the open fields for days after
it falls. The turquoise and blue are the colors of the shadows on the
snow drifts, after the sun comes out. The twisting of the tucks, from
side to side, and the use of graduated values, creates the illusion
of movement, as in the falling and blowing of the snow, during the storm.My
use of a traditional quilt block (Grandmother's Flower Garden) on the
back of this contemporary art quilt is my tribute to the many anonymous
quilt artists of the past. I chose a hexagonal design to echo the geometric
structure of snow flakes.
