The most beautiful gemstones capture light and reflect it back to us with unique brilliance, revealing their fiery personalities. Every gem has a story to tell…just like people.

This slide lecture and trunk show chronicle my own story – my 20+-year adventure learning how to create the biggest diamonds in the world in cloth. Most importantly, though, the underlying message to my audiences throughout my presentation is the importance of choosing joy and saying “no” to fear, both in our creative lives and in our personal lives.

During my presentation, I'll discuss how I've learned to spot gemstones with personality – the unique configuration of light and color that translate into a successful work of art. I'll discuss my techniques to create and assemble the hundreds of pieces in each diamond, materials I use to create the wash of color and light across a gem's surface, and the quilting techniques that enhance a gem's facets. We may even talk a little bit (maybe a lot) about Kentucky Bourbon, as I describe the gem quilts in my series “Bourbon Diamonds”!

And as so often happens with any artist's decades-long journey, I'll share insights gleaned from my walk away from the Corporate Life and into the Creative Life.

My conversation with lecture participants includes the following topics:

1. Selecting gemstones with “personality” – the unique configuration of light and color that translate into a successful work of art

2. My unique use of single-foundation piecing techniques, including the coding I’ve developed for color wash, placement, and adjacency

3. Techniques for painting fabric that provide my diamonds with depth of color and flow of light across the facets

4. Quilting techniques that enhance the diamond’s facets

5. Embracing joy and the creative life