No Exit

By the time I created No Exit I was really using stitch as a bas-relief element in work which I considered to be a textile painting or, more accurately, print. I was no longer using commercially available fabrics but instead was inkjet printing my original abstract compositions on paper-backed cotton using computer-altered photographic elements derived from my own photographs.

I continued working with the ideas of transformation and re-creation afforded by this process. This way of working utilized my art background, my knowledge of photography, some computer skills and my love of the tactile quality of textiles. I liked that my process combined modern technology with a traditional textile process. The method of construction was quilt top, batting and backing with the quilt top comprised of a number of printed panels, the width of my 17" wide printer, pieced together.

No Exit was part of a series called Playing In Traffic, my response to traffic turmoil created by an enormous explosion of construction in metro Denver, making negotiating traffic a real everyday challenge. Using traffic signs as titles, strong colors and chaotic abstract images, I expressed my frustration with this aspect of contemporary life. The abstract nature of this series and that of my other recent work is concerned with the formal elements of art such as color, shape, repetition, texture and movement. Recently the art quilt world also seems to have become interested in the use of these elements in abstract compositions.