I use the stitch as a marker of time, to consider our oblique relationship to the past, present, and future, and ways to forge a relationship with this shifting terrain. I use the stitch as an orientation marker, a way of siting where one has been and where one is going.

In my most recent series, Endings, I track the fading light of the night's stars against that of the emerging day. Choosing historical, individual moments that explore the rift between past and future, I sample events from the American pioneer movement to the first sighting of Sputnik above the United States.

Using a computer program that calculates the actual stars seen at any chosen historic moment allows a kind of time traveling that places the viewer at a specific vantage point.

The two juxtaposed elements of light are shown in two layers: scenes at dawn and dusk are painted with dye onto fabric paired against the stitched lines of the stars fading with dawn or emerging with dusk. Here the first light of day-a harbinger of what is to come-is contrasted against the stitching of stars burning out in the sky, a symbol of what is lost. Just as the setting sun appears to close a chapter of time, the evening stars represent a larger cycle continuing.

The works have an aspect ratio of 1.85, the same proportions as classic John Wayne westerns like The Searchers, playing off the cliché of riding into the sunset and questioning the idea of an ending implied in that fading of the day's light.

In previous series the site of the bed is the primary context for my work. Displaying my quilts as bed sculptures surfaces inherent meanings: the body, the home, a place of the familiar, a centering point. The stitch patterns diagram various mapping systems--scientific phenomenon, energy dispersion patterns, bird migration routes, computer circuitry, etc.--using the intimate lens of the bed and handstitching to internalize these patterns. Objective information is translated to the subjective, building a world of reference points that create a whole.