Hello! Here's a little bit about me and my work....
I was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, by deaf parents who encouraged all my artistic endeavors.
Sewing on my mom's treadle sewing machine, I learned to sew clothes a a young girl, and always loved fabric. As a young woman in the San Francisco Bay Area I became next-door neighbors with the quilter Therese May. We became friends and started a quilt group which began my love of quilts and quilting. At about this time I started freelancing as a calligrapher, and eventually as an illustrator, which I did successfully for a long time.
Fast forward some years, living now in the Sierra Nevada Foothills of California, I have left behind my 30+ years as an illustrator and calligrapher to devote my time to teaching, longarm quilting, and making Material Matrix quilts. My experience in the advertising/graphics world has given me invaluable lessons that I use daily in my quilt work.
What is Material Matrix? 10 years ago I participated in a quilt challenge to make a self-portrait. Having followed the painter Chuck Close and his amazing portraits I decided to attempt a large self-portrait, using a grid system similar to Close's work in paint, but in my case, fabric. My 80" self portrait came from that challenge, and the technique that I devised to make it. I love piecing...so it was a natural to create an image using a gridded photo by piecing fabric into 2" squares, and eventually making an image from many of these pieced squares. Material Matrix was born.
I am a life partner to Gary for almost 40 years, who is my best critic and kindly photographs my quilts. We have a grown son, Matteo, who is passionate about bikes in all forms. When I'm not quilting you can usually find me on the Pickleball court, honing my Scrabble skills, or cooking up a new recipe. I belong to SAQA and am presently a JAM member.