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.

Finished: Kyrie Eleison

Earlier this week I shared about carving and printing the central tesselating blocks and word blocks that go around the edge for my newest liturgical quilt, and today I'm back to share the final piece.

Lord Have Mercy, c. 2026 Shannon Conley, 43"x38"

The gold diamonds were printed separately and appliqued to the rest of the quilt.  I tried to give a little additional color variation to the main tesselating pattern by using different colors of blue, turquoise, and purple thread.

Here are some closeups of the words spiraling around the outer edge "Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison"

Unusually, I struggled a lot with my silk quilting thread,  I'm afraid some of it has gotten quite old, and has been sitting in my sun-filled studio on a wall-mounted thread rack for several years.  I had a ton of breakage with this quilt, so it was much less fun to quilt than usual and the back is terrible.  But it's done now and I've put all my silk thread in a dark box for storage.

The artist statement reads: Part of my ongoing series of liturgical quilts, this piece features a tesselating, interlocking pattern in the center, made using hand carved block prints, and reflecting the interconnectedness of all life on earth. The Kyrie Eleison (Lord have mercy) swirls around the outer edge in an ever continuing plea for mercy, compassion, and forgiveness as we, as individuals and societies, continue to fail each other and fail our planet.

 

New Art Quilt: Kyrie Eleison

As many of you know, I've been working on a series of liturgical inspired quilts for a long time (over 10 years) and am nearing the end of the series.  To be honest, I say that, but probably there will be a phase 2 if I had to guess, I love making them, and I have more in my brain to come I think.

Anyway, I started this is one over Thanksgiving last year at my mom's.  She's been doing a bunch of truly amazing block printing and block carving, and I wanted to try some myself, especially with the idea to make some tesselating patterna.  However when I got to her house, I realized I could just start with this block I'd already carved back over a decade  ago in a Jean Wells Keenan workshop.  It started out rectangular, but I cut off the corners to make a 60 degree diamond and then used the little cut-off bits to fill in the small 60 degree triangle.

This is the pattern the diamond block made.

 

I decided to print on one of my pieces of shiny white polyester (thanks Georgia!)  The printing colors gradient shifted from blue in the middle to purple around the outer edge.  My printing is not lined up well, that's definitely something that takes tons of practice.

The outer diamonds are going to be filled with the words "Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison" rotating around, so I carved those word blocks, and then printed them when I was back in New Mexico over Christmas.

Come back later this week to see the finished piece, and in the meantime, please enjoy this fantastic hand embroidered sheep my mom made many years ago.  Every time I walk down the hallway I want to scratch his nose!!

I love getting to do so many fun artistic explorations when I'm at my mom's!