The
Ancients Gallery

All of the art quilts on this page are available for purchase, except where noted. If there is a particular piece in which you are interested, please contact me for information.

The series was inspired by a photograph taken by David Coulson of ancient engravings in Niger, Africa. The dancing women found just below the summit of a ridge stands about five feet high. Although the age of the original engraving is unknown, the painting is recent. Locals visit the site of the dancing women to color the engravings with clay and charcoal, hoping to tap into their ancestral power. During the civil war in the 1990s, the engraving was used for rifle practice.

These ancient dancing women speak to me without words in a way that feels primal. I can’t understand exactly what they are saying, but I understand their joy. With my art, I hope to express my own perception of joy in the feminine experience. Even as I sit at my computerized sewing machine, my experience of womanhood is not so very different for me than it was for the dancing women of Africa so many thousands of years ago.