Heidi Parkes

My quilts are hand-stitched at nearly every phase with piecing, appliqué, embroidery, and quilting. I approach my compositions improvisationally, yielding to the circumstances of my daily life by sewing in meetings, on airplanes, and while on-the-go. This lighthearted approach admits to the ephemeral constraints of the every day and yearns to create beauty with a process that mirrors and reveals the stresses of daily life. I use material meaning, diagrams, labor, repetition, and artifacts to invoke sympathetic magic and the law of attraction. Thus, I filter my wholehearted and tender desires through a lens of abstraction, maintaining my personal privacy while inviting viewers in with relatable and specific imagery. My quilt, Verdant, Aim, Nimble, Soften depicts the calendar for 2021, casting a spell to invite a similar abundant green energy into the future. My animal familiar, the rabbit, appears in many works as a self-portrait and stand-in for myself.