Marlene Sanders discovered quilting relatively late in life, but she’s quickly making up for lost time, creating magnificent quilts with layers of meaning,
CREATIVE THREAD While other artists might start with a visual — an image or a color —Marlene says her starting point is an idea. “It could be an interesting commentary I’ve read on the parshah” she says. “Once the idea grabs me I’ll look at additional commentaries. I’ll start to work it out on paper read some more work some more on the sketch and then let the idea sit for a while. It’s like sitting on an egg until it’s ready to hatch”
S ome people lead lives that follow a straight path. Marlene Sanders isn’t one of them. Not only has she journeyed great distances geographically — from the Caribbean island Curacao to Holland to Eretz Yisrael — but twists and turns on the road led her to discover the best creative outlet for her many talents.
Along the way her mother asked sometimes with exasperation “When are you going to grow up and stop playing?” Fortunately Marlene is still playing. For the past decade she has been “playing” with fabrics of many textures and colors to create the dazzling quilts that will be exhibited at the Museum Sjoel Elburg in the Netherlands this summer.
Curacao conjures up images of postcard-perfect beaches shimmering under a brilliant blue sky. Paradise on earth Caribbean-style. Yet Marlene speaks about this Dutch-owned island and its capital city Willemstad where she grew up with a touch of sadness.
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