These drawings and paintings took inspiration from an heirloom quilt passed down to me from my mother. Most likely it was made by my great-great grandmother, Isabella Jane Reed Kerr, in Ohio, ca. 1860. It features a white-on-white stitching technique called trapunto which creates a raised, puckered surface. As it hung on my wall under low, raking light, I became intrigued by the play of light across the surface. I took reference photos and heightened the contrast further with Photoshop. The symmetrical design and organic patterns have furnished a vocabulary of forms to improvise with. Some involved precise diagrams of the quilt pattern while others have departed significantly from the source but all were drawn by hand. I used a modular approach and the individual panels can be displayed singly, or in various groupings depending on viewing area. When a selection of the work was assembled for a solo show at Dutchess Community College, where I teach, I titled the exhibit Narrative Threads and I have included 2 installation shots. This slide gallery represents about a decade of work grouped here under that same title and I continue to work its variations. The recent paintings are acrylic on plexiglass using invented color; the quilt itself being white-on-white. The Trapunto Patterns grouping are done in brown acrylic ink on 11x14" duralar sheets. Size and arrangement of the composite can vary. 
