I recently finished my piece for Fractures and Fissures. The quilt was inspired by a photograph I took out my car window while driving down Hwy 60 on the way to my parents' home in Ruidoso, NM. The trip is a long one, over 500 miles. I'm almost always leaving Oklahoma in the afternoon after working a long morning, so the day seems to drag on forever. The first several hours of the trip are on I-40 through some very boring country and my heart is always itching to get back to the mountains. The last section of plains, between Portales and Roswell, NM seems to take the longest. However, I'm often driving that section during the early evening, when dusk is approaching and the skies are suffused with gorgeous light.
I wanted to make this piece for Fractures and Fissures because the plains often get a bad rap for being flat and boring from those of us who consider ourselves mountain folk. But hidden beneath the surface are both literal and metaphorical fractures and fissures. A walk through the plains turns up unexpected ravines, delightful pockets of wildlife and plant life, as well as human-inspired contentiousness. The often conflicting interests of those who want to continue extracting oil and natural gas, those who want to populate the landscape with alternative energy sources like windmills and solar panels, those invested in providing food for our society on farms and ranches, and those who have an interest in preserving the native plains ecosystem, filled with unique grasses and wildlife will rear their head to anyone willing to probe a little deeper.
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