Featured Work

“Galapagos”

Original  Fabric Collage 2013, 60 x 50

Please Contact Me for information, availability and pricing.

My journey to becoming an artist was not a straight-line path, but even as life steered me in other directions, I was never far from creative endeavors.

As a child, my mother encouraged me to draw and be creative with whatever was available.  My father would bring home discarded paper from the university.  At that time, paper was most often printed on one side only and not recycled.  I would get excited when Dad came home with a new supply of “one-sided paper” for me to draw on.

If there was an empty container, a scrap of fabric or yarn, or a broken piece of jewlery Mom would suggest things I might make using them.  I made puppets and stuffed toys out of anything I could find. By the time I was in kindergarten, I was getting recognition for my drawing ability.  By high school, I made money drawing portraits of musicians and famous personalities. I loved drawing faces from magazines and often worked with pastels.

My maternal grandmother was a seamstress and my maternal grandfather was a tailor. When I was 10, my grandmother taught me to sew on her treadle machine, which has a place of honor in my studio. I loved making clothes for my dolls and my first quilt was a doll quilt made with fabric samples from the tailor shop. 

We traveled often.  I have lived in three foreign countries, Greece, England and France and five states.  During our travels, I was exposed to many different types of art. I have walked miles and miles in many museums and have seen many important works of art.

I studied art in college, receiving a BA in studio art and an MA in Art History.  I taught at the community college level for 8 years, before returning to school to get an engineering degree.  During my 30-year career in engineering, I set art aside, but have happily I returned to it.

Inspiration came when my husband bought me an expensive, fancy sewing machine and I figured I’d better learn how to use it. In 2013, a series of coincidences led me to the Empty Spools Seminars in Asilomar, where my creative juices began to flow.  Armed with fabulous subject matter from a trip to the Galapagos, I began making art quilts.

I especially love the textures, colors and patterns that working with textiles provide, but still enjoy painting.  I continue to explore new ways to use fabric, paint and dyes to create compositions and capture images.

In addition to textiles, I create work using watercolors, pen and ink, acrylic paint and pastels. I also find great joy in embellishing gourds and wood turned bases with coiled pine needles, raffia, beads, waxed linen thread and slices of seashells. My brother, Erik Brengelman prepares the bases for me and the creative process follows very naturally. The materials dictate the outcome as the design evolves and work progresses, resulting in each piece becoming a striking and unique work of art.