Despite beginning her quilt-making career using clothes from the Salvation Army, Von Mertens found satisfaction in creating quilts inspired by "odd avenues of knowledge and inquiry.
She has stated of the series, "The work is intended to act on many levels: as a memorial, as an actual vantage from a specific moment in history, but ultimately I am simply documenting an impassive natural cycle that is oblivious to the violence below.
"[7] Other prominent themes that take form in the patterns she uses include the dispersion of nuclear energy, hidden topographies, and migration routes of humans and birds.
In an interview, Von Mertens states, "These patterns reveal to me aspects of our existence whether it is how we experience time and face the infinite- embedded in that is our own mortality- or how the boundary of the body is presented to others versus how it is felt internally.
Using a hand dying method, Von Mertens created her aura works based on well-known or significant art historical paintings.