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Icon/No Beads by Donna Fleming

Size: 25" x 25"
Artist, Partner in Aisling Studio Gallery My gallery features contemporary fiber and fine craft. I began using the computer as a challenge and as a fulfillment of Eleanor Roosevelt's mandate, "...to do the thing you think you cannot do." It is also a way of experiencing the 'art salon' phenomena of the 21st century.

My TNARQ? quilt, "Icon/No Beads," is part of a series of small works of personal icons, this one about hair. I am enchanted by the materials, and as in any enchantment, it is my breath, my obsession. The process of construction requires a contribution of my own medicine/magic, so this quilt has fabric made from my hair, a reinterpretation of the way hair was used in Civil War lockets. In addition, batting is painted and used on the surface, while memories are embroidered in stitches. I pray that the spell is never lifted, the enchantment remains.