Quilted DNA
Beverly St. Clair is a practicing psychiatrist who has explored the aesthetic and discipline of quilting for many years. Her unique focus is on what she has termed the genome quilt.
“My idea for genome quilts grew from the juxtaposition of two experiences at Wesleyan University in November 2001. First I viewed an exhibit of work by Anni Albers, an artist I have admired for many years. The show included her serigraphs of triangles arranged in a grid. I was struck by their similarity to quilt patterns. The next day I attended a lecture about the Human Genome Project and was impressed by the beautiful shapes of the proteins illustrated and the interesting patterns made by the microarrays. I realized that I could use a simple quilt block to represent each of the four bases in DNA: cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine.
DNA Code
To create 4 different blocks, Bev bisected a square into a light and dark triangles and rotated it into four orientations to resemble the letters C, G, A, and T. Bev then places these blocks in sequences determined by the base sequence. It’s possible to then read the genetic code by looking at the quilt. Her color and fabric choices influence the overall look of each unique DNA Code/design.
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The quilts are visually pleasing, with their strong colors and seemingly traditional design, but they hide and reveal an entirely other construct of information.”
hepatitis virus C gene, 63x70 in
While in college, Bev’s nephew worked in a lab at Massachusetts General Hospital on the genetic sequencing of a piece of the Hepatitis C gene. For his graduation gift, she made him this quilt, shown left in which she encoded that particular gene segment.
Bev’s genome quilts have been featured on the covers of Nature Genetics December 2008 and July 2009. Her quilts have been featured in American Quilter’s Magazine, March 2010, and exhibited at The Quilters’ Gathering 2003 and 2007, Nashua, NH, the Lowell Quilt Festival 2004, Lowell, MA,and the International Quilt Festival 2005, Houston, TX.
 WIG 1 Gene |
 WIG 1 Gene detail |
 Bev's personal Mitochondrial Data, 58x58 in |
 detail of Bev's mitochondrial DNA |
In conjunction with the 2009 exhibit The GEEE! in GENOME at the Children’s Museum in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada five of her genome quilts were displayed.
detail from quilt back of Human Red Cone Pigment gene, 63x63in.
Bev also creates commissioned Celebration and Liturgical quilts with prices ranging from $1-$5,000.00.
