Angela Merkel World Leader

My interest in making art usually concerns color. I have a visceral reaction to color, in all combinations. Strong color makes me salivate, and breathe faster. It’s funny, but true, that the first time I saw a painting by Monet, I had a terrible desire to taste it.

The many combinations of color are what first draw me to art quilts and paintings. I think of fabric as a painting medium when I am making a quilt. A story is usually the secondary reason I make art. The sight of a flower, the color of a jacket, or the pattern of a tile can inspire a mental picture, which I then try to translate in fabric. This translation becomes the story of the quilt.

Sometimes an emotion causes me to begin an art project. When I turned 40 it seemed that I became invisible. It was harder to attract the attention of clerks in stores, waiters in restaurants, and people in general. In reaction I made a series of art quilts expressing this feeling of being ignored. The quilts I made for HERSTORY are part of my effort to give courage to the gray haired ladies who are the underlying structure of society.

The doll like figure on this quilt is shown climbing the Berlin Wall. It’s a way of expressing the obstacles Angela Merkel had to overcome on her way to ruling reunited Germany. The misty building in the distance is the traditional seat of power, the Reichstag. The overall drab color of the scene represents the deprivation people endured under Communist control. The cut apart coil of barbed wire is symbolic of the beginning of reunification that allowed Ms. Merkel to come to the attention of people in the west.

Angela Merkel is the First Woman Chancellor of Germany, and the first person to be raised in East Germany and become Chancellor of reunited Germany.

Cotton fabric, Inktense pencils, colored pencils, polyester fusible fleece, cotton and polyester thread.