Nancy Crow earned an MFA in ceramics and weaving in the late 1960s but shifted to quiltmaking in the 1970s, becoming one of the leaders of the studio art quilt movement. She began by manipulating traditional American quilt patterns, such as this Log Cabin, but also started to cut her fabrics directly and spontaneously in order to more fully explore formal design elements such as color, line, and shape but also express her emotions and reactions to life experiences.