As a child, Paula started sewing troll clothes with scraps from her mother, who taught her sewing, embroidery, and knitting. She branched out into a variety of crafts under her sister's tutelage, and became enthralled with quilting after studying for a semester in France. The first quilt took six weeks to piece, and four years of graduate school to quilt.
Without formal art training, she pursued quilting classes in color and design from nationally-known quilts, including Nancy Crow, Judy Dales, Ruth McDowell and Meiny van der Heide. She also experimented with scraps and a glue-stick, a quick-and-dirty technique well-known in the quilting world.
She feels that her most creative period surrounded the birth of her son, the passion and joy of watching him discover the universe brought forth a waterfall of images. Instead of struggling, she pressed forward to take chances, make decisions, and share with him the wondrous world of color and shape, fabric and glass, and imagination.
Today, she uses a variety of techniques and tools to create quilts. Children's fabrics inspire exciting, yet practical baby quilts. Conversely, art quilts are unique; they can be pieced, or appliquéd, then embroidered and beaded.
Paula's greatest inspirations currently are her son and the ocean. The ocean is a lifelong romance, from stormy cold shores of Maine and Massachusetts when growing up, to the hot sands of the famous New Jersey shore, they reappear in many quilts. The smaller pieces may have shells sewn on, from Sandy Hook or Long Beach Island. Other ideas come from walks in the woods, the stars in the sky, and the odd turns of phrase from her son.
Paula currently lives in Princeton, New Jersey, and is available to discuss commissions for either art pieces or baby quilts. Turnaround for baby quilts is currently two weeks; larger pieces will take longer.
