Cindy creates abstract designs in fabric with a focus on color and line. Her work is designed iimprovisationally without a preconceived pattern, a little bit like jazz music, where each decision about color and shape influences the next.

Cindy was raised in Gainesville, FL and learned to sew at age 10. She made clothing as a teenager and young adult, but there weren’t any quilters in her family, so she didn’t start quilting until she happened on a magazine article about quilts as a college student. She was immediately enthralled with the possibilities of making something beautiful and useful out of fabric and thread that wouldn’t wear out, or at least not quickly, and gave up garment making for quilting.

She started out as a traditional quiltmaker but got tired of following patterns and began to develop her own contemporary style as an artist, inspired by the modern painters she studied for her fine arts degree in college, like Henri Matisse, Paul Klee, and Helen Frankenthaler.

Cindy’s work has won awards in both quilt venues and art venues and can be found in private collections all over the country. She is the author of two books on Improv quilting, Artful Improv and Adventures in Improv Quilts. Her approach as a teacher is to encourage each student to develop their own creativity, providing them with a variety of techniques and simple, easy to apply ideas about color and design to help them make their own original work. The wonderful thing about Improv is there’s no way to make a mistake!

Cindy lives and works in Reston, VA.