I'd thought for a long time about doing a quilt designed with black and white and shades of grey. It seems that the grays in life are far too often ignored, neglected or even rejected. The question though became how I might design that quilt using my curved seam design, a process which best seems to utilize colors which reverberate, one with the other.

37 1/2 X 47 1/2, 2005

    I spend a fair amount of time of the beach, not only collecting bits of driftwood and rocks, but also seeking inspiration.  It was on a beach near Crescent City where I found it -a small stone with an intriguing pattern of embedded white granite lines.  When I returned home, I worked up several drawings from these embedded lines. In each of them it looked as tho light was trying to enter the space from just everywhere!   And it finally occurred to me that if light has so many degrees of intensity, then it made sense for me to intertwine the shades of gray.

    Once the conceptual problem was solved, the design turned out to be comparitively easy to construct, but when it came to quilting,  I didn't have a clue!   Having faith in the process, I just began to quilt.    Frequently I'd become lost, no idea where to turn next.   It was a signal that that was time to quit, to meditate and to keep my faith that the quilting design would come to me. Every day, small section by small section until finally the quilting was done.   I am often intrigued by how much of the creative process can just come to one, sometimes without any plan at all.

Shown at Pacific International quilt Festival 2005