In the winter of 1973, my final semester of graduate school, I attended a lecture by Jonathan Holstein and Gail van der Hoff at the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester. By then they were quite well known for the Whitney Museum exhibition they curated in 1971, Abstract Design in American Quilts. On the stage with them were several lofty stacks of folded quilts, among these a number of striking Amish quilts. This was my first exposure to this particular genre, and I was dazzled. These Josef Albers-like constructions of solid color fields of wool challis challenged and widened my novice's idea of what traditional quilts looked like. Within a few years, several publications appeared documenting the Amish's singular approach to quilt surface design, among them Phyllis Haders' Sunshine and Shadow: The Amish and Their Quilts. I've been inspired by the Amish sensibility about color ever since.

"Bedloe's Island Pavement Quilt," completed in 1975, reflects this fascination both with color and with the Amish and their quilts. The format is formal and conventional–blocks of geometric figures united by a burnished yellow lattice–with an outer border quoting similar Amish configurations. An encyclopedia photograph of the Statue of Liberty, showing its enclosing pavement base with inlays of variously colored stone squares, was the triggering image. Made with my then three-year-old son's eventual maturity in mind, it would serve as his "independence" quilt, to be transferred when he turned 21. That it was inspired by what is widely known as Liberty island (formerly "Bedlow's" or "Bedloe's" Island, and re-named by Congress in 1956) gave it symbolic value. When he did turn 21, the timing didn't seem right to pass it to him; it remains in my studio, perhaps to be a t.o.d. inheritance, the moment of every son's true "independence."

It's possible, too, that it's remained in my home all these years because it became part of our everyday life, a furnishing in our guest rooms over decades that many friends and family members slept under. In those first years of making quilts, their function as bedcovers was important to me. They could hang on walls, yes, but they made as expressive a statement draped over a mattress and box spring. For me, "functional" art wasn't a pejorative descriptor, and still isn't. Living with objects that carry meaning enriches our lives, and gives those objects increased resonance.

My timing on this one was optimal. The Boston Center for the Arts, then located in the historic Cyclorama Building on Tremont St., had announced a juried exhibition, "Quilts for '76," to take place in the building that Fall before the Bicentennial year. "Bedloe's Island" was accepted, and the inclusion of other contemporary works by makers like Nancy Halpern and Radka Donnell, helped to incubate a regional artist community that would, over the years, grow in numbers and influence.

Installation view of "Quilts for '76"(above) at the Cyclorama Building, 1975. "Bedloe's Island," 2nd from left, would subsequently hang in a Bicentennial year exhibition at Boston's I. M. Pei-designed City Hall, organized in part by quilt historian Lenice Ingram Baker (installation photo below) and later in my first solo exhibition, in 1977, at what was then Bridgewater State College, at the invitation of ceramist and jeweler John Heller, who was a professor there at the time. This energetic uptick in interest at the local and regional level contributed mightily to my personal commitment to the discipline and my first sense that I might be able to make some kind of career of it.

Above and below, views of the installation of Fabric Geometry in Fall 1977 at what is now Bridgewater State University. While we were installing the show, a custodial team member from whom we'd requested a ladder walked into the gallery and, figuring these were carpets of some type, walked across both "Bedloe's Island" and "Elaborated Tangram," the piece on the far right. Took our collective breath away there for a minute. Fortunately, the footprints, clearly visible at the time, all brushed off and the installation proceeded. Gave new meaning to the term "functional."