Façade III: Red Oxide, detail

The first time I had ever heard of the idea of working in a series was a long time ago – maybe 1999? – when I attended Nancy Crow’s Sets & Variables and Improvisations classes back-to-back at the High Peaks camp in Estes Park, Colorado. This was full-immersion exposure to the processes and methods of a serious art quilter. Along with giving us tons of exercises to do, which some people worked very hard at and others blew off, depending on their individual personalities, Nancy stressed that it was important to fully explore and develop an idea. The only way to really do that was by making several works in which you would repeat some elements but vary others. I was fairly new to art quilting then and hadn’t made a lot of work, much less given thought to the idea of a series. But Nancy’s teaching methods pretty much changed my life.

I went home and started trying out some of the things I had learned, which included how to work with curves and odd-shaped pieces. I did make a couple of things that belonged together as a series, but I didn’t really find anything I wanted to explore more than 2 or 3 times until I started working with paint on the stitched canvas. I was very excited about the textures I could get with this method, and I think that is the key to working in a series. You have to be enthusiastic about what you are doing, or it’s not going to go anywhere.

I have a couple of different named series – I categorize them by the subject matter or type of colors – but all my current fiber work belongs in a single series by virtue of the fact that the working processes are the same.