Pecos Color Cues
21 Artists. 21 Colors. One Spectrum.
Give twenty-one artists the same instructions and see what happens.
That was essentially the premise of the Pecos Valley Quilters' Color Cues Challenge. Each artist received an assigned color and a prescribed size—13 × 36 inches. Everything else was up to them.
I was completely enchanted by this installation. The exhibition was a spectacular demonstration of something I've always believed: constraints don't necessarily limit creativity. Sometimes they reveal just how much of it there is.
And the results? Twenty-one wildly different interpretations of what was, technically, the same assignment.
I photographed the exhibition and created Pecos Color Cues, a tiny, spiral-bound photographic book celebrating the artists, their quilts, and the extraordinary spectrum of individuality on display.
Naturally, I couldn't resist making an art project about an art project.
Photographs and book design by C. Collins. Roswell, New Mexico, 2026.
*Liberties were taken with the photographs. The quilts retain their own.
