When the pandemic broke out and shut down our world for a while, Maria, as is her way, thought about finding a creative way to capture the experience using her art, something she is almost always looking to do – weave her art in with the life around us.

Someone sent her a large Japanese Kimono for the fabric, and Maria sensed an opportunity to record Covid-10 via fiber, using sewn illustrations of the news, quotes, milestones, and statistics that she found worth recording.

There’s even a Donald Trump quote or two. She worked on it almost every day for more than a year and the Kimono is a fiber record of the time. I didn’t know how she would capture that experience in fiber, but she did. It’s what she does.

She worked on her Corona Kimono every day, and then moved on, as she does.

A friend of hers who reads her blog asked for permission to tell the Bennington Museum about Maria’s work, and Maria is sending them some additional information.

We don’t know if they will choose to exhibit it or not, but I have no doubt it will end up in a museum somewhere if they don’t, or even if they do.

It’s a brilliant evocation of an extraordinary time, the story of the pandemic told in fiber art. Maria isn’t especially interested in the acclaim of others, she has never sent her art anywhere to be shown, but her friend is right:  this piece really deserves to be seen and shown.