website: http://www.jeririggs.com

email: click here

My art is about the dialog between chaos and order.

Quilting (with all the techniques available) seems a natural medium for this interaction:  the choice of structured, straight-line piecework amid vibrant color, or the curves and variations of appliqué contrasting with regular geometric forms, or the use of dyes and inking on top of piecework, or even the regular movement of color across an unstructured piece all involve me in choosing the relative balance of order and chaos.  I am granted (some!) control over this interplay, as play it becomes, with the delights of happenstance amid a framework that contains and comforts.

Beadwork speaks a similar language:  tiny points of color organized into a coherent design; stained glass without torches or sharp edges!  Geometry or not, small sculptures in glass and thread.

In my previous life I followed the path of Science; becoming a Physician and then a practicing Psychiatrist seeking to balance chaos with order; fighting disease and mental illness with the rules and techniques of Science and Medicine. When I developed Fibromyalgia in 1992, I had to face the end of my ability to work this way, and was plunged into a world of pain and suffering without the comfort and control that I had previously taken for granted. Quilt making was initially the only activity where I could escape my prison and be free to control some area of my life. I was surprised by the temporary lifting of my pain during those creative times, and the joy I discovered in letting my imagination fly.

It has been 16 years, and I have noticed my artwork change as I have changed, and as I have been encouraged in my efforts; by my dear friends who have supported my learning process; by teachers I have studied with, by the guilds I have been a part of and by my family who have suffered through my halting tenuous peace with my illness.

It is time to share some of my explorations with you.  I hope my experiments give you joy in viewing them. Please feel free to email me with your comments, criticisms, questions and enquiries!

Thinking Inside the Box
©Jeri Riggs 2001
55 x 55 inches
Cottons, machine pieced and appliquéd; machine quilted.

Making this quilt allowed me to play with the wonderful fabrics I had been making and collecting, and I found myself concerned with the dichotomy between thoughts inside my tangled brain and my wish for a smooth outside presentation.

Part of the Art Quilts at the Sedgwick, April 2002 show. Please see http://www.sedgwickcenter.org for more information and to obtain a copy of the CD rom of the show.

Juried into Husqvrna Viking 2002 contest: MasterPieces: A Voyage of Self-Discovery, touring nationally until 2003
 

Tree of Life
©Jeri Riggs 2001
27 x 48 inches
Cotton, machine pieced and appliquéd, hand appliquéd, machine quilted.

 Inspired by ironwork in a photo of the Pellissier Building by Morgan, Walls and Clements in Los Angeles (1930) in Eva Weber's book "Art Deco" pg 58.
 

Running Away
©Jeri Riggs 2004
23 X 23 inches
Paper pieced, machine and bobbin quilted, commercial batik fabrics, cotton batting.

Escaping from the cross of matter and the boundaries of structured progress that is always expected of us all, the spiral continues to gain momentum.