Quilt In Red

Medium: Mixed Media on Canvas
Size: 6ft x 8ft
Creation Date: 2022
Collection: Ephemeral Atmosphere

Quilt in Red (2022) is a tapestry of emotion stitched not with thread, but with gesture. Part of the Ephemeral Atmosphere Collection, this 75 x 95 inch mixed media canvas evokes memory, warmth, and rupture through a grid that flickers rather than confines.

The work draws on the visual language of quilts — repetition, variation, structure — but filters it through abstraction. Reds dominate: deep garnets, burning crimsons, and soft rose tones that bleed into muted greys and textured blacks. The palette feels both ancestral and contemporary, like tradition recollected through mood.

I’ve always been drawn to quilts as metaphors: for care, for heritage, for the invisible labor of preservation. But Quilt in Red is not about nostalgia. It’s about what happens when the pattern frays — when the pieces no longer fit neatly together, and yet still hold.

This work finds resonance with Rosie Lee Tompkins, whose improvisational quilting speaks of deep internal worlds through visual rhythm. Like Tompkins, I see each mark as a kind of stitching — not decorative, but connective.

The grid in this painting isn’t precise. It wavers. It moves with the weight of feeling. And within each section is a different climate: a storm, a breath, a silence.

As part of the Ephemeral Atmosphere Collection, Quilt in Red explores the fragility of cohesion — how we hold ourselves together, even when unraveling.