Sue Reno

Mole and Fern

I am interested in the small mammals that make their homes in my suburban habitat. I enjoy observing them going about their daily routines. I am saddened but also intrigued by their eventual demise and their skeletal remains. For years I’ve worked on an ongoing series of quilts made with imagery from the skeletons. For Mole and Fern, I began by taking macro photographs of an eastern mole skull, Scalopus aquaticus, which I printed on transparencies and used to make cyanotype prints. I also made wet process cyanotype prints and a monoprint of the ferns that grow in the area where I observed mole activity. I made hand-stitched hexagon panels to loosely represent their underground tunneling activity. I combined all these elements with patchwork, layered the quilt, and heavily stitched it to add texture and dimension.

Materials: Cyanotype panels, heliographic print panel; hand-painted and commercial cotton, silk, linen and wool fabric

Technique: Original macro photography images used for cyanotypes, wet process cyanotypes and heliographic monoprint made with fresh botanicals, hand stitched hexagon panels, patchwork, stitching

Size: 57”h x 40”w

For Sale: $5,500