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Bonnie Magness-Gardiner

Fiber, Printmaking, Visual / Media

I create art quilts to explore color, texture, and pattern, sharing stories inspired by nature, imagination, and the built environment. My process is improvisational, starting with a sketch or palette and using commercial, hand-dyed, or vintage fabrics. I arrange pieces until the composition feels right, favoring saturated colors and bold lines. Quilting adds texture and meaning, inviting close inspection. My influences include painters like Bonnard, Matisse, Diebenkorn, Sonia Delaunay, and artists such as Pat Pauly, Nancy Crow and Heidi Parkes, as well as Japanese aesthetics and shibori traditions. Each quilt blends these inspirations, personal memories, and the joy of discovery.

About the Artist

Featured Work

Photos

Ice cream. Cold, sweet, creamy, crunchy and delicious in the brilliant sunlight of summer. It’s what you want on a hot day, getting sweaty while strolling on the boardwalk with the sound of the surf in the background. I used reverse applique for the ice cream and hand applique for the cotton waffle cone. Dense background quilting over wool batting makes the non-quilted ice cream cone pop. Hand dyed and commercial cotton.
Sitting by my pond in mid-summer, I am at peace but the pond is busy. Leaves move in the breeze. The surface ripples from the waterfall. Fish dart around occasionally splashing with a tail. The pond in summer is lively and restful all at once. Techniques include monoprinting, screen-printing, stencil and stamp using fiber reactive dyes. The quilt is machine stitched and free-motion quilted.