Every few years, I spend a few weeks in Tucson, Arizona to get away from the cold and dark of the Northeast winter.  The southwestern desert landscape is full of delights—the graphic shapes of many varieties of cacti, a landscape of neutral tones enlivened by bursts of brilliant color, dramatic varying skies, sere mountains ablaze at sunset, the influence of indigenous, Anglo and Spanish cultural motifs everywhere.  I  can’t help but take a lot of pictures. This quilt is a tribute to their intriguing design of the saguaro cactus trees that grow slowly and numerously all over the place, no two alike.

I created this quilt by adapting a segment of a gigantic, colorful mural on the back of the huge Tucson Shopping Mall.  The image screamed “quilt me” so clearly that I had to take a picture of it, too. And Saguaros is the result.