Salli McQuaid: Solar Bear, 67"w x 50"h,  2011. R-detail.

Artist 's Statement

I took a class from Maggie Ball to learn how to do bear paws since I have been collecting bear motif fabric over a few years. Once I learned the basic technique, I branched out with my own design. The overall image is a head of a bear, yet many bears make up the quilt. Since the colors and forms I chose seemed strongly Native American, I composed in my software the Hopi bear claw and embroidered out four of them to enhance the design. A difficult en pointe structure, inspired by Maggie Ball's The Bears Come Out at Night masterpiece, was used throughout the quilt.

Materials: textiles, specialty threads (metallic, haloshimmer, variegated, cotton, rayon, invisible, poly).

Techniques: machine piecing, lettering, original embroidery,  (Hopi bear paws). Machine and long-arm free-form quilting.