Quilted Equations

Quilted Equations is a solo exhibition by Dawn Ottensmeier.

Working with textiles and connecting bits of cloth and pieces of thread satisfies my desire for a creative process that allows the various parts of my life to co-exist. The separateness I sometimes experience dissolves when I find ways to make connections through art. The parts fuel each other and offer insight, inspiration, coherence, and acceptance. Details and symbols from my professional life can merge into creative acts of construction and embellishing. Fabric from family and friends can playfully integrate into a quilt. Homage can be paid to a special person, place or favorite poet.

Perhaps more important is the repetition of stitching, offering a doorway to something deeper, more subtle, more powerful. This meditative act leads my mind and body into an almost sacred, devotional practice where no stitch is ever the same twice. The connective threads unify, offering a sense of wholeness.

My textile constructions rely on personal histories embedded and held in ‘used cloth.’ I prefer to work with recycled cloth, giving the fabric a chance to express transformation through a relationship with the past and the present. What emerges from the interaction is sometimes a surprising and revealing result. What gets altered is oftentimes myself.