I was talking with a dear friend this week, over the holidays and we discussed all of our new work. I’ve been unable to leave the visual/vertical paths alone this year. She told me she had been working on smaller things. We’re both of an age. Wailing a huge quilt through a sewing machine is past aerobic. But it occurred to me: We only make bed size art quilts because we still think of them as quilts. Shows define them as bed coverings/ linens. We make them as art. But we are still restrained when we show them to think in terms of bed sizes.

That’s simply awkward. What I make warms from the wall visually. It’s not made to be lain on. Metallic thread will vigorously defend itself from anyone who wants to use it on a blanket. So will organza, or stabilizer, or angelina fiber. When I make a quilt, it’s made for someone to snuggle into. It’s pretty. But it’s made to be a bed linen. When I make a tapestry, it’s made to glorify the wall.

Just practically, it’s sort of hard to find a queen size wall to hang an art quilt on. The standard bed sizes are made for beds. I see nothing wrong with that. But I look forward to the day when we understand that excellence is not measured in size, that standard size only works for some things, and that a piece of art always is measured by it’s impact, not by following size requirements. And that normal is a setting strictly on the drier.

We may have come to that, one by one as art quilters , fiber artists, and contemporary quilters. I’ve always skirted the world as a quilter. I work in, three layers ( at least) sewn together, so I fit under that description.

Art is not about practicality. It is about seeing and building the beauty in our lives. Sometimes our lives are our art. We build our lives in ways that make us whole, make us sound, make others happy, make us strong, whole, and joyous. Sometimes our art is our life: those moments where we live and breathe in what we can make visual out of imagination and the things around us. But either way, they are our birthright. We are artists just by way of being human. We do art, as we can when we can. But we are artists because we live and breathe in a world we impact with what we see, what we dream and what we do.

For this next year, I wish your art to kindle the fire of hope, creation, joy, passion and warmth. Without needing to fit any standard size or expected purpose. I hope you art shines just as it is, just as you are. Just as we all are. In Imagine Dei.