Mirror Quilts

Mirror Quilts
2008 - 2009

The Mirror Quilt photographs are photos of reflections on a 51 x 36 inch mirror quilt. Instead of quilting with fabric, I cut glass mirrors in a traditional 8-pointed star pattern and glue them on a fabric backing. I take the quit to different people's homes, hang it on a stand, and let it gather color from the surroundings. I set up my camera facing the quilt and photograph its surface. Each piece of mirror is only glued in its center, so I wedge tissue under the edges to avoid reflecting the camera. The Mirror Quilt photographs are, like quilts, portraits of the individuals in whose homes they were made.

"It took me more than twenty years, nearly twenty-five, I reckon.. My whole life is in that quilt... When the girls annoyed me or when they gave me a warm feeling around my heart. And John too... Sometimes I loved him and sometimes I sat there hating him as I pieced the patches together... I tremble sometimes when I remember what that quilt knows about me."

— The Standard Book of Quilt Making and Collecting by Marguerite Ickis