December 6, 2008
WIG-1
Beverly St. Clair turns genetics into art.
The Massachusetts doctor and quilter has long been a fan of artist Anni Albers. One day in 2001 her appreciation for Albers’ style and the beauty of the human genome combined in her head and something just clicked. Her Genome Quilts were born.
Bev told me, “Anni was a wonderfully innovative textile and graphic artist, married to Josef Albers, who is better known for his “Homage to a Square” series.”
Bev was first exposed to Anni’s screen prints while she was in college. They featured interlocking triangles, and she loved the way the patterns danced on the surface and lead your eye from one shape to the next. Many years later, after she had started quilting, Bev saw another exhibit by Anni and found new inspiration for her quilt making.
“The idea of coding DNA sequences in quilts, (my genome quilts), came to me in November 2001 during a weekend when I saw an exhibit of the work of Anni Albers and also attended a lecture on the Human Genome Project. The base elements of DNA are represented as different triangular shapes. I realized that I could use simple quilt blocks (half-square triangles) to represent the base sequences of DNA.The resulting quilts are visually exciting and carry the deeper meaning of the code for the particular gene being represented.”
Seeing the art exhibit and the Genome Project on the same weekend made everything just come together. The visuals used in the Genome presentation were images of proteins encoded by the DNA and also of microarrays, which appear as black squares with little colored dots in a regular pattern on a grid. This got Bev thinking of ways of visualizing the genome. There are four building blocks to DNA and four ways to orient a half-square triangle. The rest was history!
Red Cone Pigment quilt
Bev made her first DNA quilt by searching the Human Genome Project website for an “interesting” gene. She wanted a gene associated with quilting and found the gene for Human Red Cone Pigment, one of the genes that helps to us see the color red – Bev’s favorite color.
In September 2008 her website was mentioned on Boing Boing and then a few other blogs. The magazine Nature Genetics found her and chose her Human Red Cone Pigment quilt for the cover of the December 2008 issue.
In the course of her work as a doctor Bev reads several medical journals, and sometimes articles about particular genes capture her interest. More recently she has been making quilts that depict an individual’s particular genome. You can go to the National Geographic website for an easy way to obtain a sequence of part of your own DNA. They can use the information in your mitochondrial DNA to tell you where one of your maternal ancestors originally came from. The sequence of about 600 base pairs of DNA is just enough to make the ultimate in a personalized quilt!
Bev has tried to use different visual ways of grouping the fabrics in her quilts. An example is the Hepatitis Virus C quilt which demonstrates a radiating concentric circular pattern.
Hepatitis C Virus quilt
The YAP (Y alu polymorphism) quilt is made of all the same kind of shot silk fabric. Bev created the pattern by orienting the grain of the fabric in different ways. This piece is quilted with the double helix pattern.
YAP quilt
This photo is a close up that shows the grain of the fabric and some of the quilting featuring the double helix.
Recently Bev visited the Albers Foundation in Connecticut and was able to see some of Anni Albers’ sketchbooks, where she had originally designed her screen prints. Anni used the same graph-paper method that Bev (and most other quilters) uses to design her quilt blocks.
Double Helix quilt
Beverly is best known for her Genome Quilts, such as Double Helix Red, shown here, but she makes many other gorgeous quilts and I wanted to feature a few more of them here.
Double Helix Red
I asked Beverly why she quilts…
“It satisfies some kind of need that my brain has to put things in order. Working within the constraints of a grid pattern, I find endless creative possibilities.”
“I’ve also found ways to make quilting more of a group experience. I started a quilting group at my church, where we teach people how to quilt by making pot holders which we sell to raise money for our church’s outreach projects.” The group is also making bed quilts that the church is using for its participation in the Metrowest Interfaith Hospitality Network, a program that is helping people to find permanent housing.
Julia’s Wedding quilt
Beverly finds quilting enriching in many ways. “Quilts themselves function on so many levels visually, from the patterns and textures of the individual fabrics, to the complex arrangement of pieced shapes, to an overall image that draws one in, to the overlay of quilted designs. Then there are all the associations and memories we have of the fabrics we put into our quilts and their functionality as bed coverings. Add to that the rich heritage of quilting history and its new cachet as a way to reuse and recycle – it’s a wonderful pursuit!”
The quilt at right is Justin & Julia’s wedding quilt. Beverly describes it on her website…
“This wedding quilt incorporates the bride’s Mexican heritage by the use of the vibrant colors associated with that country. The resulting quilt glows with light. Everyone who attended the wedding wrote their greetings on pieces of fabric, which are incorporated in the quilt.”
Liturgical Stoles
Beverly makes other kinds of quilts, including celebration quilts, banners for her church, and liturgical stoles. She has created a pattern for the stoles, which she has considered selling, but is too busy right now with her work as a physician. (A pattern for her Genome Quilts is on her website.)
A local magazine, Wellesley Weston Magazine, featured Beverly as a local artist. This lead to an invitation to do a solo exhibit at the Unitarian Church in Weston. Beverly said that it was a good experience to be able to present a lot of her quilts together.
You can contact Beverly: bev@genomequilts.com
