QUILTS

I have spent this past year working in a borrowed, abandoned red house next door. My time in lockdown became a residency. Before the pandemic, I’d begun to think about games of chance, dice, luck. With so much time to think, I began going over my history, my memories from my grandfather’s porch of him playing backgammon with my brother. They could see logic in probability, calculate the rolls, trust the gambling. There are coveted rolls, double 6’s, accompanied by cheers. Double ones, snake eyes, in dice can symbolize bad luck, but usually gets a wahoo in backgammon.  My favorite move is 3:1- that is the only obvious move that I know, all the following roles are predicated by the desire to move around the board, make points, to try not to be exposed and get knocked out. You attack any open checker and knock it out; blocking, being blocked, and finally getting as many checkers off the board, with the game always being called for the obvious winner, but never actually ending.

Parameters evolved into a visual language: 24 triangles, alternating blue and green, 12 in each separate rectangle.  30 checkers,  15 yellow, 15 black, 4 dice, 36 possible rolls.  The materials: textiles, clay and paper.  The process: hand building, sewing, and printing  

I find peace in this haptic place, of the intersection between touch and the mind.  I gamble with the shape of shapes. Find comfort in the predicability of color. Freedom in wonky geometry. Possibilities, the anxiety of anticipation, trust in chance and process, and the probability needed to prod it to go my way, that all will work out.

Above: Backgammon Bed, mixed media, 77 x 74,” 2021. Photos by Katama Eastman.

Face Backgammon Board,
Mixed media, 34 x 59,” dice 16” each, 2020

Baby Blue and Pink Backgammon,
Mixed media, 34 x 59," dice 16" sq each, 2020