Red Up, 1999 - 44" x 45" I am the bane of teachers because I take classes and then do something totally unrelated to the technique being taught. These pieces started in a workshop by Susan Lea Hackett about how to piece floral and nature shapes. I used the opportunity to develop a technique for piecing, slashing, and repiecing over and over to produce complex mosaics of color. Susan had instructed us to bring 10 shades, light to dark, of two different color families. Because I had rarely used red in my work, I decided to explore what the color could do. This was the first piece, merging red with blue-green.
	Red Down, 1999 - 45 x 46" The obvious sequel to the red/blue-green of Red Up was a split triad using red and yellow-green. The challenge was to avoid something that looked Christmasy. The edges of this series are decorated with "prairie points," loose triangles of folded fabric. This helps emphasize the broken glass look I sought. All the series are machine quilted with ombred heavy cotton cord in a random jagged triangle pattern to indicate the crazed surface of old china.
	Red This Way, 2000 - 44" x 45" When I decided to merge red with gray, I discovered that the only gray fabrics for sale in the Bay Area were silks and wools, not a cotton to be had. Happily, instructor Joy-Lily had the remnants of a fabric donation to her class a decade earlier. What was left were a dozen solid gray cottons that none of the students had ever deigned to use! A treasure trove that she turned over to me! This is one of my favorites.
	Red That Way, 2000 - 46" x 46" My least favorite in this series, Red That Way won an honorable mention ribbon at the Marin Quilt show, San Rafael, CA. Art is obviously in the eye of the beholder! To "blend" the colors in this series, I needed a number of bi-colored fabrics. Few or none existed in the stores in my color combinations, so I made them, using various techniques. For example, I would buy a print combining white and one of the colors, then use ink or dye to color in the white areas with the blending color. Or I would use solid red (or green, gray, or camel) and cover the surface with embroidered stripes, plaids, or patterns on the sewing machine. Or I would fuse on stripes or dots of the opposing color. I've been collecting fabrics for another series of what I've come to call my fracture series. This time, I will try merging three colors per quilt.