A LEAF FROM EVERY TREE

I’m a self-taught amateur naturalist, thrilled to find new things in the woods, but just as thrilled to see familiar friends return year after year. For several years, I took long walks in the woods almost daily, in all seasons and weather, and used what I observed as inspiration for my studio work.

In 2018 I developed a rare autoimmune disease called Scleroderma. The disease makes it difficult for me to spend any significant time at the sewing machine, and I was forced to experiment in the studio, to learn what was possible within my new limitations. I discovered that a return to hand quilting and the embroidery I did as a child, plus machine stitching on a smaller scale, all made continued work possible. I began to monoprint papers and fabrics and learned to eco-dye fabrics and papers using leaves from my woods. 

Because Scleroderma has also made it difficult to walk in the woods, I feel a real and growing desire to create physical souvenirs of my old life in the woods while the memories are still fresh. In a way, my actual sense of loss of the woods due to my physical limitations mirrors and makes real the anticipatory grief I have been feeling for years regarding losses due to climate change and habitat loss.

In my woods, I have counted at least 27 different species of native trees. As an homage to these trees, and the importance of them in my life personally and in the life of the local ecosystem, I created A Leaf From Every Tree. I collected leaves from each native tree in my woods and made acrylic prints from them. These prints were used to make patterns, from which I cut out leaves from upcycled used coffee filters dyed with watercolors. I hand embroidered the vein structures into the paper leaves with cotton thread. I then showcased these biologically accurate embroidered leaves against a background quilt made by eco-dying a piece of wool felt using leaves from those same trees. I hand-quilted this, intuitively following the patterns and ghost images of leaves made by eco-dying, before mounting my leaf collection to the quilt. 

The resulting quilt is a personal souvenir of a natural place I love, a nod to the leaf collections from middle school science class, and also a reminder that our forests are full of an important biodiversity that is continually challenged by climate change and habitat loss.