This week I’ve been working my way through a large quilt inspired by a home in my neighborhood.
It’s mostly hidden. Trees are untrimmed, vines are overgrown, shrubs abound in a wild tangle, and the house seems to exist mostly in shadows.
What’s visible reveals a person who finds it meaningful to adorn his compound with a pirate’s skull-and-crossed-swords flag and a variety of signs and flags from the Confederate Army. Symbols of intimidation and defiance. Together with some American flags, the symbols poke through the overgrown vegetation.
There’s lots to think about.
The mechanics of the work are challenging for me. It’s big, and it has a lot of complex images to somehow bring together into a unified composition.
And, of course, the ideas are big. What compels a person to define himself and his home with controversial symbols? Staking out a claim? Identifying with a tribe?
I don’t claim to know the answers to those questions, and the quilt will not attempt to answer them. It will be, I hope, a way to invite thoughtful response.
(This work is intended for a show to take place later in 2026 and, for now, I can’t reveal much more about it.)
But, I can show some of the details in the artmaking that are interesting to me. I am developing the concept of rocks and cave-dwellers in the quilt imagery. I printed up some fabric with wheat paste resist to communicate that feel.
Here is the tension that’s the heart of artmaking to me: LARGE working in relation with SMALL.
What’s LARGE – what’s actually the heart of the work -- is the idea. It’s what I hope to explore and think about in response to my neighbor.
Meanwhile, the SMALL things, the nuts-and-bolts of the artmaking, deal with creating a vocabulary of fabric pieces, sewing them together and creating a 2-D surface full of images.
The LARGE idea is the reason to create. The SMALL parts of the process are what accomplish the communication and make it successful, or not.
This process keeps me interested and keeps calling me back to the studio.
. . . . . .
For all of us: focus each day
on the good that needs to be done in the world.
Be part of doing it.
Thank you for reading.
I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
How I keep in touch:
BLOG POSTS - once a week: Mostly about what I am creating in the studio. If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail, please subscribe here: I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL
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COMING EVENT
STUDIO TOUR – IN DELAND, FLORIDA
Saturday and Sunday, March 7-8 2026 10am – 5pm
Visit local artists’ studios and see how they work. Information about the artists and map of studio locations: www.artstours.org
CURRENT EXHIBITS
In Ormond Beach, Florida . . . TRIO
through March 1, 2026 at Ormond Memorial Museum of Art
My work, Three Yellow Doors, is part of this SAQA juried regional exhibit
In Lewiston, Idaho . . . SAQA GLOBAL – PRIMAL FORCES: FIRE
January 6 – March 28, 2026 at Lewis & Clark State College
My work, Nothing Remains But the Loss, is part of this SAQA juried Global exhibit
In DeLand, Florida . . . A SENSE OF PLACE
January 8 – March 27, 2026 City Commission Chambers, DeLand City Hall
My work, Escape to Quiet Waters, is part of this exhibition by ArtsEtc Surface Design Group