I grew up watching my mom make quilt after quilt for everyone in my huge family. It’s always been her art form of choice – an appropriate one to embrace in my small home town in New England. I know for a fact that piecing a quilt together is no small feat: divining a design, cutting out each intricate piece, and sewing it all together calls for a serious commitment and heaps of intention.

That’s why I was so taken with Marion Henrion‘s work here on Zatista. I particularly like her geometric “Meditation” series. Drawing on all those nights of monitoring my mom’s progress as I slogged through homework in our living room, I’d say these pieces are very appropriately named.

Utilizing fabric – especially silk, as Marion does – calls for an extra level of consideration. It’s a bit more of a process than using paper in the same application, and hand quilting is obviously a undertaking unto itself.

It’s hard to say if the same pieces rendered in paint would move me similarly. Part of the equation is color choice and composition, but there’s just something else about the art and the effort in these works that really speaks to me.

Considering the fact that Marion’s works are included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Arts & Design in New York, the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and represented in the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art in Washington, DC, I guess I’m not alone.