During March 2023 I had the opportunity to present my talk “From the microscope to the sky” to SAQA Texas, in a zoom gathering moderated by Susie Monday, Texas Regional Representative of Studio Art Quilt Associates. Susie, together with me, will be part of the Color in context: Red SAQA global exhibition. 

I explained how I am inspired by textures that I find in nature and during my professional experience.

I have used photography for twenty years, and among my past photo galleries there was one fully dedicated to textures visible in the reflections on the surface of water.

I started to use microscopy during my thesis work at the University, and the pictures I gathered in that period became part of a science communication project which travelled around Italy for some years.

I am still using microscopy and other imaging techniques, such as optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, x-ray tomography and ultrasonic testing: I have a professional relationship with images and I continuously work extracting technical meaning from raw abstract pictures.

When I put my recent texture quilts aside to the images obtained at the microscope, sometimes I find they have similarities. I don’t use photos as a direct source to make a quilt as a replica of the subject, but the library of pictures filling my memory surely influence my quilting practice.

Ally Ryde described my works as “quilts of places”. My last quilts are a collection of landscape textures, such as: Grasshopper path, Sealights, The space between the clouds and River gone green.

After many quilts dedicated to exploring this subject, I have the feeling that textures spontaneously speak of Nature. Since ancient times, our brain needed to recognize the variation of a popping fruit among the dense foliage; to spot the movement of creatures approaching through the thickness of the grass.

We are specialized in looking at textures.
And this experience is a continuous pleasure.