“My map quilts are intended as a celebration of the natural landscape of our region and beyond.

They are an invitation to the viewer to take a closer look at the complexity and beauty of the

very ground beneath our feet. I never include in my map quilts anything manmade – buildings

and roads, etc. Nevertheless, the landscapes that I depict have often been altered by humans,

a fact that is most evident in my work by the many lakes that have been created by manmade

dams.” ~ Cathy Fussell

“Quilts are about history and art and politics and stories and patience and beauty and community and economics and place and expression and freedom and transition and family and warmth – and love. And they’re feminized and often devalued.. All that is why I’m so into quilts and quiltmaking. Plus, I just love to sew.” ~ Cathy

“In my mixed-media art quilts, I create worlds that are fusions of real, imaginary, and mythological places distilled into a single climactic moment, with time and place cast as the principal characters. Their dialogue and actions are revealed in the composition, colors, textures and patterns. Up-close, quilted stitching offers a slow, lingering journey into the details of the story line. As an artist, I am inspired by natural, organic forms and the elemental energies—earth, water, wind, fire—that fuel human imagination. Included in this exhibition is a body of work developed from inspiration drawn from two of Georgia’s State Parks—Providence Canyon (and the story of its creation by farm run-off erosion) and Indian Springs. In this series I address one of the significant dilemmas we face as humans: how do we continue to grow as a creative, intelligent species and at the same time care for, respect, and replenish the planet? To create these art quilts, I’ve layered photographic images of land formations with waterfalls and one of many abandoned automobiles on the ridge of the canyon in a “digital piecing” to create a seamless patchwork of car parts, canyon walls, and moving water. Cars changed society, fueling the substance of American

dreams of exploration and extending our outreach into the external physical world. These works are about the precarious balance between human creativity, waste, nature’s power and indifference to human culture, human impact on the environment as well as a simple reminder that we are also of the earth’s soil.” - Marian