On Where My Inspiration Comes From

I get inspired by almost everything: an image in a movie, a feeling, a flower, a building. Once I was inspired by a bathroom wall. It is all piece-dependent. I suppose it is because each piece has something different to say, and rarely do I make the same piece twice. With the exception of my Day of the Dead series, where each was similar but not a copy.

Often my pieces are conflations of several ideas and/or images. I take different images, ideas, feelings, etc. and combine to make a new idea. This is one of my favorite parts of the artistic process. I find it very exciting, at my core.

My latest finished piece, "Ferns Unrolling their Young Fronds" is one of these conflations. Three separate images inspired this piece.

In October of last year I saw an article in The Guardian that had a stylized image of 5 plant stems with directly opposite leaves. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to make a quilted image of it. I kept the photo for many months until I had the whole quilt designed in my books.

On a hike I took in the desert, I came across a small rock overhang that was protected from the sun. The ground was moist-ish and there were tiny ferns with their verticillate fronds erupting. I had a photo of it, but I lost it in one of my many computer crashes. Bummer. But I remembered the photo, and on a subsequent hike I came across another similar spot and took a new photo as a reminder.

I knew I wanted to combine the image from the article and the fern fronds. I knew I would incorporate embellishments, thread colors to enhance features, beads to capture the light, specific fabrics for the imagery I wanted.

But there was something missing.

Then in Spring, on yet another great desert hike, I captured a photo of an ocotillo flower in full bloom. Ohmigosh, it was fantastic! When I saw the flower, I knew I wanted to incorporate its image in this quilt. I knew right there and then that this was what had been missing.

It took me a while to put it together. I wasn’t so much scared of the piece as I wanted it to turn out just right. So I took my time. I wanted this piece to be a conflation of what I had seen. Together, along with being outdoors, and knowing spores, pollen, and seeds were being carried by the wind, all inspired what I created.

This piece brings me so much joy, just looking at it I feel happiness.