Before I made art quilts, I did batik. The background of this piece is one of those batiks. It started with tie-dyed turquoise and white fabric. I painted with melted wax where I wanted turquoise waves and then I dyed it purple. Then, I used wax to paint fish shapes that would stay purple. Finally I dyed it black. When I took the wax out, it wasn’t as cool as I had hoped. It was hard to see the fish and there was too much blue. I put it in a box where it sat for 16 years. When my quilting buddies decided we should all do a fabric collage, I got this piece out and decided it was the perfect setting for my fancy fish scene.

Our past experiences, the good and the not so good, set the background for our new ventures. And sometimes we find that things we thought were mistakes turn out to be just what we need to create beauty.