Aullwood 2011: Sandra Palmer Ciolino

Sandra Palmer Ciolino Crevasse 24" x 16" $485

Sandra Palmer Ciolino is another art quilter from Cincinnati.  Sandra's work is primarily geometrically based, although some of her other pieces are more organic.  I know this sounds contradictory, but if you look at her galleries on her website, you'll see more geometric pieces than you do the others...but she does both and she has a link to a you-tube retrospective  as well as galleries of her work.


Sandra has two pieces in the show both from a series based on photographs of the Herbert Glacier in Alaska. This one entitled "Crevasse" and the other called "Glacial Runnoff".  

Sandra Palmer Ciolino Crevasse Detail

Here's her artist statement:  "Crevasse is based on an aerial view of glacier fields in Alaska.
Fabric is my medium.  My ongoing connection to the tactile quality of fabric and its potential to be transformed into objects both utilitarian and beautiful is undeniable.  My quilts express the relationship between my intuitive sense of line, shape, color, value and texture.  I am passionate about meticulous craftsmanship and am obsessed with machine quilting for it is this phase of the creative process that presents opportunities to add additional layers of character, texture and structure to the composition.  As my eyes focus less on actual images and more on the infrastructure of  my surroundings, my body of work has naturally evolved from a representational to an abstract viewpoint.   Materials:  hand dyed cottons by Virginia Keiser, wool batting, cotton threads, rayon, metal and glass embellishments."

Sandra Palmer Ciolino, "Glacial Run-off"  20" x 28.5"  $700.

Sandra Palmer Ciolino, Glacial Run-off detail

Her second piece is entitled "Glacial Run-off."    I was a little puzzled by her color choice as the glacial run-off I'm used to seeing in Montana and in the Olympics in Washington state are turquoise, not the blues that she uses in this piece. But, that's just my observation as her chocolates and true blues and blues with a violet cast certainly work.