Rhonda Janke - Recent Art

On this page are my most recent quilts/collages, made up of cloth buried, and then sewn onto non-buried fabric. For other recent work, and previous work click on the tab on this page ("recent art") to see the other pages.

In these works, cotton cloth is buried in soil, but the microbes are the creative energy revealed in the markings, colors and patterns that you see. Microbes are responsible for the air we breathe. And the food we eat - both from the ocean and from the land, would not be possible without nutrient cycling provided by fungi and bacteria.

Soil is so much more than the minerals derived from the geologic parent material. There is the air in the soil pores, water, which all affects the microbial ecology of this mostly hidden universe. Recent DNA analysis of the soil used for these “buried cloth quilts” revealed approximately more than 2800 species of bacteria and fungi, most of which are beneficial, or of unknown function. Some produce pigment, which are the markings on the cloth, due to the growth of colonies of bacteria and mycelia of fungi.

Soil Health Index

13” x 77” buried cotton cloth and other cloth. This “scroll” was created in 2015, using identical pieces of cotton cloth buried for one month in different soil mixes and composts ranging from “unburied control,” the white cloth, to “vermicompost” at the other end.

Al Batinah Fields

49” x 47” buried cotton cloth and other cloth was created in 2023/24 from cloth buried in various fields in Oman by organic farming students. The Al Batinah coastal plain is a rich, productive agricultural region of Oman.

Ancient Soils

63” x 108” buried cotton cloth and other cloth, 2023/24. The large pieces in this quilt were from experimental plots comparing various farming methods and smaller pieces are from farmers’ fields, some of which have been farmed for over 2000 years. The geometric design was inspired by Omani Bedouin traditional weavings.

Photography credit for these images to David Mayes, professional photographer, Manhattan, Kansas. https://davidmayes.com/