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About the Artist

Lori learned to sew in her grandmother’s seamstress shop, producing some of the most inventive clothes Barbie has ever worn, but she set aside needles for pens for a long time, eventually earning a MA in English Literature and a MFA in Poetry. When the toodlerhood of her second son left her with little time to think, a weaving loom in chaos, and a broken spinning wheel, she picked up the quilt she started when she was pregnant and began to write her “letters to the world” in fabric and thread. Two years later she saw her first “art quilt” and realized that what she had been doing at home wasn’t just therapy, it was a medium that women and men around the world were using to express their visions of the universe. Soon after, she joined the Virginia/MD/DC group Q and A Art Quilters as a founding member and began to exhibit her work in the DC area and beyond.

Artists Statement

When my oldest son was thirteen, he had to define what art was. He finally decided, without my help, that art was an attempt for the artist to communicate with the universe. I agree. Whether I’m trying to communicate something about my emotional state—joy, grief, or rage and many other emotions in between, or trying to communicate something about my spiritual state, the quilts I make are messages to myself, to others, and to the divine. Sometimes, all I can do is piece squares together—other times, the work becomes a dervish dance of dyeing, fusing, beading, and couching. I may begin with a rough outline or plan, but what I create may or may not follow that original plan.

Artist Website

http://laughinggirlquilts.blogspot.com/