At the moment, I am thinking about Robert Rauschenberg, and his 1955 work, Bed. It's on display at the MoMA in NYC, and is 75” x 31”. Rauschenberg used discarded materials and mundane objects, a pillow, sheet and old quilt. Splattered with paint and scribbled with pencil, Bed is beautiful. Mostly, I notice the quilt, with its bold colours, pattern, and subtle moments of asymmetry. It's hand stitched, and required significant skill and time to make, though here it feels like a throwaway. So, I cut up some discarded paintings, sew them together, and stretch the completed patchwork onto a frame. At play here are centuries-old quilt-making techniques, including piecing, assemblage and appliqué. Also made evident, are those pictorial tropes associated with painting, including the abstract and figurative forms. Astonishingly, my intrepid sewing machine survives the process, despite the constant tugs of gummy, heavy canvas and wads of chewed up paint under the needle plate.