I started making my first hand-sewn sixties style crazy quilt in 1968, about the same time I was introduced to collage and Dadaism in a high school art class—it was love and a sense of connection immediately.  I started writing poetry when I was about ten.  The quilt, never finished, has long since been lost.  Along the way, work, family, and life got in the way of my creative nature though the love of the process remained. 

Traveling around the West and living in Grand Canyon taught me to see the beauty in many differing vistas.  In college, a combination of Theater, Business, and finally Writing has brought me to where and who I am today and the belief that the artist lives within us.  We need only open ourselves to the idea.

I’ve always looked at the world and the objects I see with the attitude and thought, “hmm, what can I do with that?”  Now our world forces us to be more creative and continually look at things with the thought of giving everything and anything a second and even third life as something new.  I’ve never met a scrap (paper, fabric, metal, wood, etc.) I didn’t admire.

Disability forced me to slow down. The purchase of a small basil farm with my husband Rob has enabled me the time to explore more creative thoughts.   In spite of my disabilities, I try to use them to my advantage creating my “bent fingers art” that is uniquely me!  Now I still write poetry and work with fabrics, fibers, and untold objects or papers, fibers, and untold objects.  Often a poem inspires a quilt/collage or a quilt/collage inspires a poem.

While one would never mistake my art as realism related to nature, nature is a major inspiration.  The beauty and peace I find on our small farm and the surrounding woods, opens the wellspring of creativity and imagination—and off I go sewing, gluing, and writing.  The people I meet and know inspire me, and often I’ll write a poem or create a quilt and or collage with a specific person in mind.

I hope looking at my “quilts” and other mixed media pieces gives you a fraction of the pleasure it has given me in creating them.  I can be contacted at 607-898-4766 or rabbitcreek@peoplepc.com