INTO THE COLD

In my studio, I operate on a very low speed as it relates to the broader concept of time. The craft of quilting is centered on time. Time is relative to the amount of labor and the quality of that labor.

Quilting has this sort of masochistic clout to it. It is a process by which the end result is a direct visual representation of the amount of time/labor that goes into it. There can be this automatically gained reverence for the work through just looking at the pattern. If the piece is made of many pieces, if the pattern is complex, etc. the viewer can understand the time that was involved in the process of making.

I think that is what I find so captivating about patchwork quilts. The decoration of a quilt is its structure there is no deception in the construction and the end result. Glaciers are much the same in their authenticity. They hide nothing. The pattern that sediment paths leave were visually captivating and speaking to the melting itself. You can track the process of melting through the sediment patterns. I couldn't help but connect that with quilting, and how patterns in quilting are representative of the process. And ultimately, the melting of glaciers, and the sediment paths also speaks to our time and labor and its effect on the natural world.

To build the pattern for the quilt, I pulled from the colors and forms of the glaciers. Color is represented by the cold icy white blues, sediment slate grays and blacks. The forms of the glaciers, and sediment paths are mimicked in the repetitive sharp shards, at once geometric and organic.

When you work on something slowly and intimately, at a slow pace, you begin to develop a deeper understanding of that object.

Its parts, how the parts interact, how those parts are constructed into a whole, its capabilities, its faults, how to repair it if it breaks - and I think giving time to that develops an understanding that can not be achieved with a higher speed. Pace is quite powerful. I think about it almost like traveling from point A to point B.

What is that experience like if you walk versus if you drive?

What opportunities are you giving yourself to notice?

What do you miss and what do you gain by either experience?