Artist’s Statement:

I have always been drawn to textiles and they always seem to make their way into my art. I began making quilts in the early 70’s after seeing a museum exhibition. Then I started cutting scrap fabric into shapes and sewing it together, in amazement, at the wonderful designs that emerged. I make both traditional and art quilts.

I love nature and am inspired by its shapes and colors. I see my quilts in terms of Sketches, Drawings and Paintings. I do literally draw on them with my sewing machine when I “quilt” .I use a lot of Traditional quilt blocks in the piecing, as well as a more free form piecing styles. I have started incorporating my photographs printed on fabric into my palette of hand dyed and painted, commercially printed and woven cotton and silk.

I have been focusing on the nature of SonomaCounty for the past 25 years. The view from my window is of miles of vineyards and hills of Pine, Fir and Oak. I have the fortune of being able to wander among the vineyards where I have become aware of the details of the seasonal growth cycle. From this, I have been focusing on the Wine Country in my art for the last few years. I began utilizing materials, the vines, leaves, tendrils, and hardware of the vineyard. These quilts displayed incorporate photographs from these locations, leaf and tendril prints, carefully harvested dried vines and tendrils.

Karen and I have talked for years of doing an art project together. She had done some paintings of grapes, and saw my first leaf print quilts, which inspired us to the theme of wine country, East and West, as we live across the country. It seemed a natural to have Amy’s nature inspired pottery as part of our Arts and Crafts show. We worked cross country and are multi generational. My quilt “Intersections of Years” references both our friendship and the growth of the vines.

Gina Stateler-Calhoun

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Gina lives in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County California. She received her B.A. in Art with a Minor in Theater Arts and an emphasis in Costume Design at Sonoma State University and works at TimberCrest Farms in the Dry Creek Valley, Healdsburg, California.

Gina is a member of the Moonlight Quilters of Sonoma County, the X-treme Art Quilters in Sonoma County, and is currently designing costumes with the Independent Eye’s Puppet Theatre Mythic Kitchen Ensemble. The X-treme Art Quilters hold an annual exhibit at Moshin Winery in Healdsburg, and the Moonlight Quilters hold an annual Wine Country Quilts show in Santa Rosa. Gina’s quilts have also been exhibited at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show in Williamsburg, the Pacific International Quilt Show in Santa Clara, California and has exhibited and won numerous awards in the Sonoma County Fair. Vicky Gunter commissioned a quilt by Gina for her show, The Reading Chair, which was exhibited at the Oakopolis Gallery in Oakland, California in September 2008.

Gina also does custom-designed quilts. Contact Gina at ginasquilt@hotmail.com