that drawing I was so familiar with. As I finished it, I was suddenly struck by the fact that the view out my window was the drawing of my childhood!  It seemed my childhood self KNEW that one day I'd find my art in beautiful Central Oregon, with the Cascade Range before me and thousands of acres of trees. I felt that I had tapped into something very special as life handed me this gift.

Telamadera Fusion is Born:

             Fabric became my passion. I marveled at the awards I received for my quilts and was so happy to buy more fabric with the money I earned from selling them.  It was at the Bend Fall Festival where I had my first booth that I presented several of my creations to the community. To be clever, my husband helped me create a wood sandwich board to which I adhered fabric letters that spelled "Alma Art." A few ladies that spoke in Spanish stopped by and must have assumed I didn't understand them.   One said, not very nicely, "I don't like anything here, just this." She pointed to my sign. As quickly as these three women walked in, they walked out and left me shocked and sad.

             After several days of allowing her words to continue to upset me, I realized (with the help of my husband) that once again, I was being handed a gift: the sandwich board. It looked across the room at me as if saying, "I want to be more." This launched a three month discovery of creating what I saw in my mind's eye which was luminous paintings using fabric. After much trial and error, I found a way to create artwork that was archival, UV resistant and that would not yellow.  To honor its "Spanish" beginnings (and my own), I called it Telamadera Fusion. "Tela" means fabric and "madera" means wood; bringing these two together has been pure joy.

Me:

             Originally from San Francisco, California, I now live in Sisters, Oregon at the base of the Three Sisters Mountains with my husband Mike and my two children.  When not esxploring the endless possibilities with fabric and paint, you'll find me traveling with my family, teaching, writing, hanging out with my friends or in the forest with my dog, Augustus.

             I am the author of Collage Fusion: Vibrant.... My work has been featured in several publications, including Cloth, Paper, Scissors, Quilting Arts, Take Ten and Bend Living. I have enjoyed being on TV  and my artwork is in numerous collections nationwide and abroad.

           

                                                 My Stories:

How Art Found Me:

             One early morning I turned the TV on to a show called "Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson." It changed my life!  I was completely taken in by the beautiful fabrics that seemed to speak directly to me, inviting me to play with them.  Until this point my artistic expression had been finger painting with my children and having fun decorating their rooms, so it came as quite a surprise to both my family and I when I created my first handmade quilt.

             As a child I seemed to be constantly drawing the same picture of mountains and trees with an occasional lake or river.  Not unusual except for the fact that I always lived in metropolitan areas with not a mountain to be seen anywhere!  It came naturally to create my first quilt based on

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