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TRIANGLE QUILT, wax resist, procion dye, 75"h x 54"w, 1977 The white lines that border the hand-painted triangles were made with a wax resist tjanting tool. Painted using Procion dyes when I was an art student at Beal in 1977 and quilted in the winter of 2011. The design was influenced by brilliantly coloured Pennsylvania Amish quilts from the early 1900s which I discovered in a book, A Gallery of Amish Quilts (by Robert Bishop and Elizabeth Safanda). Up until then I had been making quilts with floral-patterned material. Collection: Emily Goodden |
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SUCCESS FOR EVERY STUDENT, embroidered cotton, quilted, 48" h x 84"w, 1990 
Photographing Success for Every Student in Will Kuryluk's studio with Will's assistant |
This was a breakthrough quilt for me in a number of ways. I discovered an embroidery technique called "couching" which gave me control over making a fine line, so that I could reproduce hand-writing. "Success for Every Student" was the motto of the London Board of Education. 150 students from Kindergarten to Grade 8 at Fairmont Public School wrote the motto without assistance. This was organized by a friend of mine, Celia Evans, who was teaching at the school. Everyone is represented in this quilt: the struggling and accomplished, the flamboyant and the introverted, the indifferent and the well adjusted. One of my favourite "signatures" is on the top row: a crude outline of a hand. The piece was a comment on "Whole Language" and became a Trojan Horse of sorts when the Board acquired it through contributions from 10 London businesses and industries to present to the retiring Director of Education Jack Little who had coined the motto. At the dedication ceremony I said something to the effect of: "How you react to this quilt will have a lot to do with your personal experience of school." The quilt was also a turning point in terms of having my work recognized in the good company of fine artists at the 44th Annual Western Ontario Exhibition at the London Regional Art & Historical Museums in 1991 where it won a Jurors' Award. Success for Every Student hung in the atrium at the Education Centre on Dundas Street for many years. It was taken down when the Thames Valley District School Board was formed. |
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photo above taken 2009
FATSO, yarn embroidered on cotton, quilted,
78"h x 56"w, 1999 The handwriting is a selection from Grade 5 & 6 students. |
CAPT. SCOTT: LAST WORDS embroidered, painted cotton, rope, square nails, 78"h x 70"w, 1991 The last page of the diary of Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912): We shall stick it out to the end but we are getting weaker of course and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more. R. Scott Last entry For God's sake look after our people Collection: Museum London / Gift of S.G.B. Jarvis in memory of W.L. Jarvis |
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CRACKS WHERE THE LIGHT LEAKS THROUGH quilted cotton, 1989 |
TWO WOMEN, applique, quilted cotton, 1991 From a series of life drawings made when I was at the Sheridan School of Design (1975-1976) |
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MUMMY, embroidered cotton, 1992 From a series of life drawings done at the Sheridan School of Design when the campus was in Mississauga. |
BROKEN STAR QUILT, pieced cotton quilt, 1982 This is a good representative of early quilts made with fabric my sister Maggie brought to me from her travels, in this case from India. It is a variation on a traditional pieced quilt. |
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