Impossibility and Believability

When I first ran across Barbara Lydecker Crane’s site, I gasped at the ethereal beauty of her work. She states that:

I hope that you will see both impossibility and believability in my art quilts. We live in a magical world, and I love capturing a bit of nature’s beauty and some hints of its mystery.

These are the kinds of words that never fail to rivet my attention: beauty, mystery, magic. Then she admits to a working style that completely endears her to me:

Each quilt is original and one-of-a-kind. Generally I both applique and quilt by hand, usually spending two to four months per piece. It is meticulous work! But it helps me find a place of stillness in myself, and to become ever more appreciative of the world around me.

I have tried to abandon the hand quilting, appliqué, and piecing that I do by hand, and employ the sewing machine in order to increase my productivity. Maybe someday I will cross that line. Perhaps there is no line, and I can happily employ BOTH. In any case, I empathize deeply with both the meticulous and meditative aspects of handwork.

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