Say His Name

I just had to do something after George Floyd was murdered. The background is woven of strips of cloth in all the colors of people in the world, creating shapes that look like protest signs. George's portrait is made of transparent black netting, so he belongs to both worlds... the living and the no longer living. I hope people who see this will say his name.

2020. Approx 29"w x 37"h.
Materials: commercial cotton prints, metallic and novelty synthetic fabrics, novelty trims, Sulky variegated thread, tulle

Photo by the artist

Rise and Shine

This piece is just plain crazy. I woke up one morning and got a notion to machine-quilt as many extemporaneous portraits on old coffee filters as I could before having breakfast. I got exactly this many done, and they ended up forming this perfect mandala.

2020. Approx 32" diameter.
Materials: commercial cotton prints, metallic and novelty synthetic fabrics, novelty trims, Sulky variegated thread, tulle

Photo by the artist

Surrounded

My quilt guild chose a theme of “surroundings” for a challenge, with a very loose interpretation that our pieces could be landscapes or anything else. I am currently surrounded by young grandchildren, so this was a no-brainer for me. They all come to my house every summer to what we call “Nonna Camp” and we spend the hot afternoons tie-dyeing everything we own. Hence the crazy colorful shirts on my little darlings in this piece.

2016. Approx 46"w x 32"h.
Materials: Hand-dyed cotton fabric, commercial cotton prints, upholstery fabric, digital print of book photo on fabric, novelty trims, Sulky variegated thread, tulle

Photo credit: Janet Orsi

Jammin'

Who can believe this??? I was at an art party/musical event with my sewing machine, and got tired of what I was doing. I decided on the spot to do freehand contour “drawings” of the musicians (who were not posing but moving all over the room) with colorful variegated thread on my sewing machine. I liked the results a lot, and ended up embellishing the drawings with colored backgrounds, and printing guitars with a linoleum block that I cut. I put the pieces together on an old tie-dyed sarong.

2012. Approx 43"w x 53"h.
Materials: commercial cotton fabric, Paintsticks, Dy-na-Flow paint, variegated cotton thread, cotton embroidery thread

Photo Credit: Janet Orsi

Crossing Over

My father lived in Ukiah, and ultimately in my house, for the last two years of his life. I literally watched him become transparent as he moved gracefully and inexorably towards his death, and I created these small portraits one by one as he vanished. I put them together after he died, and the finished piece graces my studio wall.

2011. Approx 35"w x 51"h.
Materials: commercial cotton prints, novelty synthetic fabrics, digitally printed photos, discharge dyeing, paper, novelty trims, Sulky variegated thread

Photo by the artist

Population Explosion

I was lucky enough to have a pregnant model in a life drawing class, and made some very loose paintings on fabric of her in a variety of poses. When I got home and viewed the paintings together, it reminded me of my adult children, who were all busily having babies one after another…a veritable population explosion. Consequently, each figure got a machine quilted corona of a fertilized egg, and the background quilting became a river of wriggling sperm. I added the chromosomes for good measure.

2011. Approx 42"w x 48"h.
Materials: cotton canvas, African hand-dyed damask cotton, metallic and synthetic novelty fabrics, variegated cotton thread, acrylic paint

Photo credit: Janet Orsi

Expecting

This is another quilt based on drawings I made of a pregnant model. She reminded me of myself, pregnant in the ‘70s, so I threw in all sorts of old paisleys and fringed fabric from that time. I reproduced the original drawings with acrylic wash and did the line details with freehand machine stitching.

2011. Approx 31"w x 41"h.
Materials: commercial cotton prints, old fringed shawl, acrylic paint, variegated thread

Photo by the artist

Practice Makes Perfect

I was practicing making quick paintings of imaginary dancers on fabric. None of them were all that spectacular, so I decided to go for broke and freehand quilt shadow images to see if I could give them a greater sense of motion. The results were fun, so I went ahead and put them together to make a balanced composition.

2010. Approx 24"w x 30"h.
Materials: silk print, acrylic paint, cotton fabric, buttons, Sulky thread

Photo Credit: Janet Orsi

A Dark Angel's Plea for the Salvation of Our Planet

This quilt was made for a challenge from the "MyFab" fabric company in Japan, which unfortunately never resulted in a show. The contestants (20 from Japan and 20 from the US) were required to use at least 40 sheets of "MyFab" with digital images printed on them, with no commercial prints allowed. I had just taken a pile of photos of this amazing mudflat sculpture in San Francisco Bay, and jumped at the opportunity to use my images in a quilt. I collaged together the sky, the skyline and the beach by cutting up the photos I had printed, and even made the stripe from a photo of a crack in the sidewalk.

2007. Approx 60"w x 80"h.
Materials: digitally printed images on "MyFab," metallic and novelty synthetic fabrics, novelty trims, Sulky variegated thread, tulle

Photo Credit: Janet Orsi

Six Degrees of Introspection

A friend came over one day feeling depressed. I had just taught a collage class the day before, and had all of my bins of scraps out on the dining room table…so we suddenly decided that art therapy was what she needed. She worked on a sad self portrait, and I decided to do a portrait too to keep her company. My portrait was entirely extemporaneous, with no plan at all, and I got the notion to bang out a few more. Three days later I had six portraits…all of nobody special, but all out of my head… so I decided they all had to represent me in some way. When I put them together they required a few written words of my own characteristics that I decided each one embodied.

2006. Approx 45"w x 66"h.
Materials: commercial cotton prints, metallic and novelty synthetic fabrics, novelty trims, Sulky variegated thread, tulle

Photo credit: Janet Orsi

Eat Your Veggies

This quilt is one that grew and grew as the concept developed. It started as a guild challenge to create one seasonal veggie dish per month for a year. So what to do with a dozen fabric food items? At the same time I put together the view out my kitchen window for a class demo, and got the idea that the two pieces could work together. The food needed to be arranged on a table, and the view needed a window to frame it, but the piece still didn't quite tell a story. Whose story??? MY story! I finally put myself square in the middle of the scene and added all of the personal touches... the old spider plant, the kitchen witch that my mother gave me, and all of my mother's cooking utensils. This quilt brings a smile to everybody who knows me.

2004. Approx 89"w x 81"h.
Materials: commercial cotton prints, metallic and novelty synthetic fabrics, antique dollies, printed napkins, novelty trims, Sulky variegated thread

Photo by the artist