For me art is full of research ::: trial & error / lesson learned through tangling with material and tools ... I love the tactile quality of cloth & thread and I have always been inspired by fiber artists. The field is so rich with metaphor (stitching, binding, mending, tying, knotting, entanglement, fraying, twisting, cinching, piercing ::: an algebra ::: putting-things-together). The Jacquard Loom was an important early model for the computer. Quipo is an early string-based form of the database ::: knot memory.

I have experimented with coding for a computerized, robotic longarm quilting machine and I explored creating algorithmic quilting patterns. I am including photographs of some of those trials here. These include attempts at piecing on the longarm machine itself (I grew to love this machine). Also included are some attempts at using the longer quilted panels for projection. These experiments were done in the context of an Artist on the Verge fellowship with Northern Lights.mn. I ended up creating about 48 of these long, quilted, textile drawings that I hung from the ceiling at a distance from the wall to create a sense of embodiment, mass, shadow, movement. These were shown with companion sound & animations at the Rochester Art Center (see: swarm), the Joseph Nease Gallery (see: count map pulse breathe, the Anderson Center (see: Modes of Being: Contemporary Abstract Art in Minnesota, and at the Duluth, MN City Hall.

Patterns were tested & quilted at thethe mctavish quilting studio.

I am grateful for their collaboration.