Phoenix artist’s quilts document the anxieties of our time

For First Friday-goers exploring the Grand Avenue art scene, Phoenix-based artist Wendy Raisanen’s new fine-art quilt exhibition at Five15Arts @ Chartreuse may have you thinking “WTF?!”

But the show aims to leave visitors with a sense of peace.

The exhibition, which opens tonight with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m., was inspired by Raisanen’s “obsession with natural disasters and these insane times of life that we’re living in,” she says.

It captures the “beauty and horror of these times,” as social media users watch human-caused natural disasters and the effects of late-stage capitalism play out on Instagram,” she adds.

“I’m a total Instagram-a-holic and whenever I see these pictures of floors and fires and all this craziness, I’m obsessed,” Raisanen says. “Sometimes these pictures