Jean Ray Laury (1928-2011) made her first quilt in 1956 for her Master of Arts degree in design at Stanford University. In Pods: A Pair, as in much of her subsequent work, Laury took a women’s art form and common materials to make everyday objects the subjects of art. In this way, she brought art and life together and encouraged quiltmakers to see themselves as artists. Her design, writing, speaking, and teaching, which forged a way for quilts to reflect women’s contemporary experiences, paralleled the social progress in women’s roles in the 1960s and 1970s, including those who were wives, mothers, and homemakers, as Laury was.