My name is Mary Arnold. I make art quilts which you can see on the three gallery pages. I also teach and those workshops, classes and where I am teaching you will find on the Class and Workshop page.
Artist Statement
The natural world is my element. In my quilts, I explore the colors and images of what I see in the world around me. I portray it as I see it or sometimes with a twist to add delight and curiosity. The colors and images of nature provide endless fascination and trying to capture them in fabric engages me.
I work from photographs, from drawings, and quite often from my imagination. I trace the image, scan it into my computer and enlarge the image to the right size and print a life size drawing to use as a pattern. When I work from my imagination, I start with a blank piece of fabric and then cut and paste pieces of fabric to create my picture.
The fabric I use primarily in my quilts are hand dyed fabrics and batiks with an occasional commercial fabric. I use fabric as others would use paint to create images from nature. My quilts can be hand appliqued but I am just as likely to use raw edge applique or glue sticks. Dense machine quilting adds to the texture of my pieces and anchors the various elements of my quilts. If it works with what I am trying to achieve, then it works on my quilt.
It is endlessly fascinating to envision an idea and then bring it to life using fabric and thread to recreate that vision. Sometimes that process is easy and comes swiftly but at times the process is slow and fraught with frustration. But either way, the creative process is always satisfying in the end when you see your vision become real.
