Margaret Fabrizio
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Quilts

I studied quilt making with Grace Earl, designer at the Chicago Art Institute, and my prize-winning quilts have been exhibited in Northern California, and at New Pieces Gallery in Berkeley, where I also played a forte-piano concert.

My mother, my grandmother and my sister have all made quilts. Although I have always sewn, I came to quilting only in the last ten years when I began making quilts for myself and my family. Each piece is machine pieced and hand quilted. Most have their origin in traditional design but develop organically, influenced very much by the personality of the recipient. I start and finish a queen-size quilt in six to twelve weeks, working night and day. The process takes over my life until the last stitch is taken. I find quilting not unlike music. I am completely caught up in the initial concept, mesmerized by color and texture, absorbed by the rhythm of the repeating patterns.

Paintings

Inspired by travels in India, Burma, and Sri Lanka, these paintings are on canvas and paper, in acrylic paint. They range in size from 2x2 to 3x5 feet.

Yogini Self Portraits

This series was inspired by the ninth century Yogini temple in Hirapur, Orissa, India. The 64 Yoginis there enshrined represent a cult of female demons who were created by Durga whom they then attended. They were also known as mother goddesses, most are voluptuous, others are shrunken with age. Many are part animal, or posed on animals, and represent supernatural powers.

Presently finding myself in an aging, changing form, bearing the marks of gravity, I saw that there is still a beauty in it, even though it is not the straight, tall, well proportioned body it once was. Hence the Yogini Self Portraits.

Collage

Digital image collages.

Portrait Masks

Portrait Masks are made on the subjects face, dried, reinforced, and then finished on the inside with black plaster. The outside surface is finished and sanded, then collaged with images reflective of that persons inner life, as I see it. Instead of a mask which conceals, it is a mask which reveals something often hidden.

Mycological Madness

A series of digital collages based on common and exotic mushrooms

Art Books

Download the interview/conversation: Margaret Fabrizio The Book as Travel Companion

Music

The classical music selections are taken from live concert recordings. The Holograms, are excerpts from long compositions, constructed in such a way that any part resembles the whole. Based on mathematic formulas, they can lead to an altered state, when listened to in their entirety.

Video

Much of the film/video work is based on footage shot in Asia, beginning with the 1999 trip to Burma and still continuing this year at the Pushkar Camel Fair. Return in February for the scene of 50,000 camels.