Art Quilts

While I’m in the process of figuring out my new website, I thought I’d put my art quilts up here. They start chronogically from the bottom of the page with the newest ones on the top.

To the beginning

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In Splendid Profusion, I used freehand curved piecing and seperated the panels from one another.

In late spring, the countryside comes alive in a riot of growth. Ferns uncurl, new leaves burst forth and vines clamber up every surface. Amidst all of this greenery spiders, butterflies, snails and flying insects flourish. The buds on an exotic-looking plant blossom into birds!

Splendid Profusion, 15" x 43", 2003

Splendid Profusion (detail)

This quilt is owned by my cousin in Georgia.

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In 2003, I took a class in Edinburgh called ‘Freehand Curved Piecing’. I took fabric in a late Autumn palette to use. Most of the other students took ‘ugly’ fabric, so they wouldn’t have to waste anything nice while learning a new technique. While I can understand their reasoning, I just wouldn’t enjoy the process if I used fabric I don’t like. In fact, I never use ‘ugly’ or ‘plain’ fabric on the backs of my quilts either. I want my work to be beautiful on the back, even if I’m the only person who ever sees it.

In Elegant Decay, I neatly finished and bound the left-hand border and finished the right-hand border with curved and raggedy edges to emphasise the breakdown and decay of organic structures. This was also a period in my artistic/creative development and in my life when I was experimenting with a more relaxed, freewheeling way of Being. This quilt is one of two which were selected to hang in the Moretonhampstead Local Open Art Show.

Elegant Decay, 18" x 35"

On the cusp of winter, the earth becomes redolent with decomposing vegetation. The crisp and vivid colours of mid-autumn have muted into rich browns, magentas, burgundies and bronzes. The sun also dims, giving occasional shafts of golden brilliance, but little warmth. Amidst all of this decrease the seeds of next year’s plant life are taken into the earth to wait until the return of spring.

Elegant Decay (detail)

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In the Fullness of Summer

In 2002, I made my first trip ‘Back East’ since 1976. My Mom, Nell Rose Schwakhofer nee Martin, was from a little town called Conway, North Carolina. My two older siblings and I were born and raised in Southern California. We had Aunts, Uncles and many cousins dotted around the Mid Atlantic seaboard states. My Mother died from cancer in 1980, after which I lost the connection to my extended family.

Anyhow, in 2002, I decided to travel from Scotland to Virginia and NC to get re-acquainted with some of my family. I also went looking for my Mom. I thought I might find her Essence in her sisters and in the area where she was raised.

One of the people and places I visited was my cousin Jane who lives on farmland which her husband John owns and works. Jane took me to see some land she’d just bought which edges a cypress swamp. I was enchanted and took some photos of the cypress trees and water lilies.

Cypress swamp at High Noon

Later, on my way to sleep, I imagined what it would look at night.

“Beneath the summer moon there is a mysterious place
where cypress trees grow out of the water
and lilypads float and flower.

Imagine a stickywarm Summer night
with mist snaking around the tree trunks
and the night air heavy with cricketsong.”

When I awoke the next morning, I designed ‘Beneath the Summer Moon’ and bought most of the fabric before I returned to Scotland.

Beneath the Summer Moon, 37" x 59", 2003

I wrote a haiku which I machine stitched to the back of the quilt before I quilted it together. I also used the fish and water lily I had originally intended for the front of the quilt on the back. They were too bright.

Back of 'Beneath the Summer Moon'

When I design an art quilt, I usually have the dimensions and about 75% of the design worked out before I begin. In this quilt, a luna moth flying towards the full moon and two fish swimming in lazy circles came into the quilt about halfway through.

Beneath the Summer Moon (detail)

The funny thing was, that rather than finding my Mother on that trip, I found that her essence is within me. Her sisters said that having me around is like having Nell aroound. That I speak and laugh like her and have her sense of style. Another cousin who probably knew my Mom the best after she had moved to California said that I am such a ‘free spirit’ like my Mom and that she could imagine my Mom making art.

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In the Fullness of Summer was inspired by the relationship and creative imagery of the Scottish artist Margaret MacDonald MacKintosh and her architect-husband Charles Rennie MacKintosh. I started from a watercolour design for a stained glass window which is one of the earliest works in which Margaret Macdonald shows a plant-woman being drawn up out of the earth by a sun-man.

Summer, Margaret MacDonald, 1894

This quilt portrays my ideal of a creative, romantic, dynamic partnership between soulmates. I pieced my background from squares of batik and hand-dyed fabrics and appliqued the lovers, seed and plant designs onto it. The frame was designed and made by John Rose. This piece is in a private collection in Boston, Massechusetts and was the first quilt that I sold.

In the Fullness of Summer, 24" x 56", 2002

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Desert River Goddess is my first triptych. I was homesick for the deserts of the American Southwest where I used to spend a lot of time on my own exploring the rivers and the Native American archaeological sites.

Desert River Goddess, 48" x 60", 2001

Desert River Goddess

“I am wild and succulent, joyous and free.
I flow with the desert rivers
and bring forth the springs.

I am the divine presence in the hollow canyons.
My dance brings life into the dry empty spaces of sand and stone.
I am midwife to coyote and rattlesnake.

I flower the cacti in Springtime
and ripen the Summer corn.

I beckon Autumn storms into being
and cause flash floods to rage,
tumbling boulders and uprooting trees.

In Winter I blanket the resting earth in snow.

At daybreak and again at dusk,
the sun follows me over the horizon.
Each night I place the moon in the heavens
and scatter stars across the velvet sky.”

Melinda Schwakhofer 2001

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I made Enter the Forest of Dreams for my graduation piece at the Thomas Chippendale School of Furniture. I wanted to make a bed that was like going to sleep in the forest. I’m showing it for the first time since my graduation show in March 2012. I’m making a quilt to cover the bed and writing about the process on my blog.

Enter the Forest of Dreams, 54" x 84" + double bed, 1999

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In 1998, I moved to Scotland and went to the Thomas Chippendale School of Furniture. I made Solstice Moon to practice the techniques used in making my bed ‘Enter the Forest of Dreams’ and to celebrate my first winter spent outside of Southern California. I sold it to a woman who came to my Open Studio in March 2011, and wrote about the experience of parting from it here.

Solstice Moon, 19" x 35", 1999

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Dreamtime at Zion is the first quilt that I designed. It was selected into World Quilt and Textile in 1998. It is now owned by a yoga teacher in Vermont. In 2010, this quilt was published in Presence magazine.