New Art Quilt: High Desert Monsoon

 Last fall, my mom visited me in Oklahoma City and brought with her this amazing book "The Art of the Fold" by Heidi Kyle.  It focuses on methods for making innovative origami books, boxes, and other structures.  My mom got interested because she's been doing a lot of block carving and wanted a way to fold some of her print pages into books.  But of course I've been interested in adapting origami techniques into art quilts for years so I immediatley ordered a copy.  

While she was here I experimented by making this one-piece, three-chambered box out of a piece of quilted batik/tie-dye. It went really well (I can't believe the repeating patterns in the batik lined up in the three chambers so well, that was completely unintentional.  It now sits in my studio gathering miscellaneous things that need to be put away.

When my copy came, I was intrigued by a five-chambered single piece structure and decided to implement it using various scraps of hand-dyed/printed silk I've made and collected over the years. Here you can the shape of the piece flat; each section is the same length, but narrows in width.

When it's assembled you can pull through tightly to generate very small openings, or loosely to create stacked structures.

I'd originally thought to just display the piece as shown above but it was quite small and just felt unresolved.  I loved the rainbow of southwestern colors, so decided to add some of the fluffy acrylic yarn I have in my stash (thanks Georgia!!)

It's so delightful to pet the yarn and run your fingers through it.

High Desert Monsoon, c. 2026 Shannon Conley, 49"x37"x3" 

It's called "High Desert Monsoon" and it makes me think of the smell and colors and sky after the glory of a summer rainstorm in the mountains of New Mexico where I grew up.

It's currently on display (along with several other pieces of my work) through December 21st 2026 in the Capitol Rotunda Gallery at the New Mexico State Capitol.  If you happen to be in Santa Fe, stop by and see the show, it has fabulous mixed-media work by about a dozen artists.