SAQA Montana & Idaho Regional Portfolio by SAQA

REGIONAL PORTFOLIO MONTANA & IDAHO

REGIONAL CATALOG MONTANA & IDAHO

Studio Art Quilts Association is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt: “a creative visual work that is layered and stitched or that references this form of stitched and layered structure.” Our vision is that the art quilt is universally respected as a fine art medium. SAQA’s core values are excellence, innovation, integrity, and inclusion.

Over the past 30 years, SAQA has grown into a dynamic and active community of over 4,000 artists, curators, collectors, and art professionals located around the world. With our exhibitions, resources, publications, and membership opportunities, we seek to increase the public’s appreciation for the art quilt and to support our members in their artistic andprofessional growth.

Catalogue Design: Sophie Hiltner, 2025.

ALISON BANKS

Bozeman, MT & Tucson, AZ

I have been passionate about quilts since 1980. I love to applique, and I work very spontaneously on my design wall. My recent two art quilts focus on women of courage, a journalist in the 1930’s and 40’s and the Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII. I also love to paint, print and melt fabrics and work in a more abstract way.

Cotton, machine appliqued and quilted 2019.

Opuntia

41 x 41

Wasp 35 x 43

ANGELA MCPHERSON

Cheyenne, WY

Angela McPherson was born and raised in East New Market, MD and joined the Air Force at 19 years old. She served 8 years while her husband served 24 years. She was stationed in Alaska twice (Anchorage and Fairbanks areas), Great Falls MT, Minot ND, Mountain Home ID, and has now settled in Cheyenne WY. Moving around allowed her to grow as an artist with new skill sets and exposure of her art quilts. She loves to teach others how to think outside traditional quilting. A few of her skills consist of traditional quilting, thread sketching, Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) and watercolor/Inktense painting. She enjoys learning new technology, skills and techniques to help enhance her fiber art work.

Military

Teen 23 1/4”x16 5/8”

Military Teen came from watching my daughter’s depression as she was becoming a young teenager in a military family.

In the military purple stands for the military children and purple also represents suicide awareness.

Military Teen was made from batik fabrics and thread. I used Elmer’s liquid glue and a toothpick to dab little glue to hold the pieces down then I raw appliquéd them on. I used thread sketching to fill in the details and write her feelings down.

Military Family. Courage Strength, Sacrifice.

Both my husband and I served the Air Force. Military Family represents the many families who wear the uniform and balance family life. A few minutes taken out of the day to dance with your child is precious. My daughter sees this as her and her father.

I used cotton fabric to make most of the quilt. I used actual uniform fabric and a flux suede for the boots. The little girl’s dress is 3D as it flows into the border. I used a little pastel oil to brighten the ring on the adult.

This piece won the Grand Chapionship for the Tanana Valley State Fair in 2016. Then it was featured in the “Quilting World” magazine Autumn 2020 issue.

Billings, MT BROOKE ATHERTON

I use the landscape of the western United States, the mountains, rivers and plains, as backgrounds for textile-based work, adding graphs and found objects to refer to things I’ve found and learned on my own voyage of discovery. These have been shown extensively in the US and England. “Twenty Feet Deep” was included in a special exhibit at the Lowell (Mass.) Quilt Show, not part of the judged show, but it came home with all three of the Judge’s Choice awards (Martine House, Joe Cunningham, and Susan Carlson).

How To Hold an Elusive Memory

24” x 48”

Cotton, silk, paper, teabags, slate, tree bark, broken pottery and china, deer hair, other found objects. Hand and machine stitching.

2012 Private collection

I Feel Free and Twenty Feet Deep

258” H x 14”W; 258”H x 18”W

Cotton fabric, Tyvek, found fabrics and objects. Machine and hand-stitched.

Bozeman, MT CAROL KIMBLE

I create using fibers, fabrics, dyes, paints and objects to clarify and share my beliefs, my feelings, my memories and my experiences. This becomes the visual statement of my story. Sometimes I find I must create a reflection or appreciation of my time and interactions with the world around me. And sometimes I must create a strong statement of fear or passion or my commitment to equality. It is how I capture my thinking, my emotions, my hopes and my understanding on this journey. I am a storyteller.

Setting Sun

26”x32”

2018

Artist dyed cotton fabric, batik sections, thread painting, machine quilted.

CAROL O’BAGY

Since learning to embroider on a deceased grandmother’s tablecloth, my work has been a fascination with & an exploration of the many facets of my ancestry. This includes the contrast between my Protestant European ancestors with my Native American ancestors and their love and conversion to Catholicism. My work usually falls into some aspect of this vast subject matter whether or not I’m fully aware of it at the time of making. My hope is that the work honors my heritage while also showcasing my love for color, pattern and stitch.

Circle of Life

30” x 31”

Two sizes of cotton cording encased in tubes made from both an old quilt top & commercial fabric by machine. The commercial tubes were braided & hand sewn to the quilt tubes & then spiraled with a great deal of additional hand stitching.

Many Moons Mandala

This piece was a result of a challenge wherein everyone received differing amounts of the same fabrics shared within a group of artists. Everyone had to make an artwork that included some amount of each fabric with an addition of one other fabric if they chose. I have always been drawn to circles & particularly to mandalas so ‘Many Moons’ came together quite easily. Although I was not thinking of any connection this piece might have with an my ongoing exploration of different aspects of my ancestry, I was delighted when the title ‘arrived’ with its reference to my Native American heritage.

Haydan, ID CATHERINE BILYARD

I am a fiber artist that chooses to work outside the box. I do this by choosing any kind of fiber from duck cloth to leather or upholstery fabric, old clothing or unusual recyclables, yarns or metals to best tell a story through texture and color. My work always starts with something that deeply moves me. I am driven to tell the story of a person, who has inspired me or an experience I have that just seems to trigger emotions. I work from photos or with photos or with I print on fabric. I might use collage, applique, paint, dye or a torch or burn something to give the texture or feeling I am seeking as dictated by the piece upon which I am working.

Against All Odds

A Tribute to Joe Rantz Olympian. Dimensions 29.5 X 39.5 inches. Made with cotton fabric, Extravaorganza photos and words on fabric, dryer sheets, eye bolts and shoe laces. (2016) This is the first quilt in my “Against All Odds Series”.

Petersburg Alaska

27.5 X 20 in.

Designed from a photo taken on our eight week journey up the Inside Passage from Bellingham, Washington into Glacier Bay, Alaska. Photoshop Elements was used to manipulate the photograph to create a watercolor which I printed on fabric then sketched back in detail with black thread. This piece is part of my process “Inside Passage” Watercolor Series. (2019)

Tranquility in

DONNA DEAVER

Coeur D’Alene, ID

I am a textile artist, who works primarily in quilted surfaces. I am constantly stimulated visually by my surroundings and curious about scenes that are unfolding, or what has come before. This allows me to see beauty in the mundane -- the details of architecture, the patterns in the sand, the tiny line of bubbles that remains as a wave recedes into the ocean. Sketching on location with ink and watercolor enables me to capture the essence of a place, time or experience, and to cement my memories in a way that taking a photograph does not achieve. Fabric and stitch, dye and paint are my tools for describing my observance of the world around me.

View from the Water: Amsterdam 21”H X 36”W

Machine thread-sketched on Pimatex cotton, painted; 2019 Textile interpretation of artist’s sketch done while visiting Amsterdam in 2018

Collage using artist’s hand dyed Pimatex cotton; quilted; 2017

Inspired by the serenity of a friend’s backyard garden pond.

Wings and Water all media exhibit, Prairie du Sac, WI 2018 – awarded 2nd place Artists Northwest juried exhibition, Roseburg, OR 2018

Jester’s Pond

34”H X 26”W

Bozeman, MT GINA GAHAGAN

Gina’s work explores how the natural world influences our subconscious and culture: the way, for instance, birds (with their ability to survive and migrate great distances in elements too extreme for us) often seem to display qualities humans have historically admired. Her pieces often include her own illustrations. She adds hand embroidery, decorative threads, beads, found objects and she often includes her own hand-dyed/colored fabric. She researches and tells a story with techniques and materials.

Retired from a career in natural resources, she has a BFA in Fine Arts - Printmaking from Montana State University, Bozeman. She’s a member of Studio Art Quilt Associates and The Guild of Natural Science Illustrators.

Midstream

21.75” x 14.25” x 1.5”

“Midstream” started out as a story about the Montana native Silvery Blue Hairstreak butterfly. I’m interested in their diet and migration habits. As the piece progressed, however, my thoughts centered on how we humans are separate creatures, much like these butterflies - blown by the wind, traveling the currents, going solo. The butterflies ride fallen leaves downstream on the currents, spinning where the water takes them. They spin near each other but never touch. I believe we need, now more than ever, to foster community, show compassion and reach out, being there for each other.

Made with cotton and organza fabric, wool batting; rayon, nylon, and cotton threads; heavy illustration paper, colored pencil, acrylic paints and ink, and pigma pen. Beads, E6000 glue.

Tumbling Bees: Keeping it all Together 16” t, 8.25” w, 3.5” d, mounted on artist’s canvas. Completed 2022.

This piece emerged from my interest in bees that live in community. It helps me to communicate the precariousness of bee and other insect communities.

HEIDI ZIELINSKI

Stevensville, MT

Using cloth and bead, my work focuses on the natural world influenced by living in Western Montana surrounded by the Rocky Mountains, living a good life, and finding joy in what we have. I consider myself a positive, optimistic woman and living in a landscape filled with green forests, clear streams and snow-topped peaks certainly feeds that way of being. My mother found her greatest joy in being in the woods and meadows, and she helped me learn to appreciate flowers, birds and trees and everything they interact with. She was always my greatest champion and teacher and I honor and celebrate her through my art. Life is precious and while we are here it is a gift to be able to pursue what brings us joy. I find that every day that I spend in my studio using my fabric, thread, beads and memories to depict a good life lived.

Commercial and hand-dyed cotton; stone, pearl, composite, metal and glass beads; yarns - 2016

In Purple Fields of Tulips 21” x 34”

Over-dyed and commercial batik cottons, dupioni silk; stone and glass beads – 2010

Blackberries and Dandelions

21” x 22”

JOYCE FERRIE

Stevensville, MT

Working with textiles and fiber brings me joy and peace. It lets me see and experience gradual transformation both in the fabric and in myself. More and more my work includes my photography and my writing. I like that I can combine these art forms to build my story. I enjoy working independently as well as with a group. Group work can offer a different kind of challenge and bring new discoveries about myself and my work. Inspiration is everywhere and I love combining different sources of inspiration when working. As people view my art I enjoy observing their reactions to see how they may be relating to the story being told and what emotion(s) may be triggered.

Grief

Height 34” Width: 40”

Cotton Poplin, Rayon and Cotton Thread, Embroidery Floss I created the design on my iPad, had it printed on fabric by Spoonflower, machine quilted, hand embroidered. 2020

Grief is pain. It is dark, heavy, and sharp. Grief is unpredictable. It starts and stops abruptly, returns unexpectedly, and is unconfined. Darkness encroaches and trespasses into the light creating chaos. Grief tugs and pulls at your heart dragging it up the hill and back down into the valley. It is loose and reckless and deep. When grief softens it allows the dark to lighten up or even become bright like sunlight streaming through the window, or liquid gold flowing through your body. The brightness brings relief and allows the body, soul, and mind to heal.

The Silver King Highway

Height 34.75” Width 45.50”

Commercial Cotton, Fashion Fabrics, Embroidery Floss, Metallic Thread, Fly Line, Fishing Fly, InkTense Ink Pencils

2021

Tarpon, also known as the Silver King, is a majestic inhabitant of The Atlantic Ocean and The Gulf of Mexico. They travel in large schools creating their own highway. It is a true gift to watch an accomplished fly fisherman hunt the mighty Silver King. He waits for the disturbance on the water indicating the Tarpon’s presence, then beautifully casts his line, presents the fly, and waits for the strike. The tarpon leaps high out of the water and dives back in creating an explosion on the water while catching the sunlight in his silver scales.

Gallatin Gateway, MT KATY NYGARD

My work is inspired by nature’s color and pattern, by lines in ancient symbols and language. I am increasingly interested in negative space and aspects of what may not be readily seen as I believe there’s always more to the story. I use materials often discarded as a way of honoring the whole and find such practice offers a deeper appreciation for life’s many layers.

Thoughts Emerge

30” x 26”

Artist dyed, painted and discharged cotton and linen fabrics, repurposed paint rag, commercial cotton fabrics, batting, Gutta, ink, cotton thread, raw silk yarn. Thermofax screen printing, raw edge and reverse applique,fusing, spontaneous marking, hand embroidery, machine and free-motion quilting.

Threads Run Deep

Artist Shibori printed cotton fabric, dyed cheesecloth, thread trimmings and commercial fabric, felt backing, Solvy dissolvable stabilizer, fabric paint and dye, variegated thread, reverse and direct raw edge applique, free motion machine quilting, hand embroidery.

26” x 20”

Red Lodge, MT MAGGY ROZYCKI HILTNER

I’ve tasked myself with questioning the artifacts of my culture by changing their context and content. Working with handmade remnants of the past, I repurpose them to comment on the present. The history of a quilt pattern as well as its geometric pattern is contrasted with the wild color and billowing abundance of found embroidery and the solemn beauty of the skeleton in linen. Working in found materials, I employ a multitude of anonymous assistants. I try to celebrate and elevate their abandoned handwork.

found

and hand-stitched embroidery, linen, cotton, 2017

What Lies Beneath 70 x 42”

Over-dyed

cotton quilt (Whole Cloth) found

Perennial

Over-dyed found cotton quilt (Grandmother’s Flower Garden), linen, found and hand-stitched embroidery, 2018

57” x 57”

MONIQUE KLEINHANS

Bigfork, MT

I am fascinated by color and texture and enjoy exploring both through my love of the fiber arts. Inspired daily by the beautiful landscapes of Montana and its varied flora and fauna, I use thread and fabric as my palette to recreate not only the visual beauty that surrounds us but also the emotional connection sparked by spending time in nature.

I am a collage artist of techniques, blending my respect for traditional patchwork with bobbin-work, thread painting, watercolors, felting, and weaving, often on my own hand-dyed and hand-painted fabrics. Many compositions include three-dimensional objects with a variety of fibers and textures.

27 x 15

Cotton fabric, thread, 2017

The Berg family contacted me to do a commemorative wall quilt to celebrate this longstanding representation of their family’s tenacity by recreating the Berg Homestead build over 100 years ago in the Yaak Valley. I created a base layer of landscape in applique, thread painted the building and then added many layers of stitching to create the overgrown grass in the fields surrounding this beautiful relic.

Berg Homestead

Ravens have long been admired for their cleverness, curiosity and intelligence. Part of many different folklores and legends these amazing birds invoke a sense of mystery and intrigue. I have always loved seeing the iridescent colors on their feathers appear as if by magic when the light hits them in the just the right moment.

Created on a hand-painted background, this raven is comprised of a collection of hand-dyed and commercial fabrics, and includes individual stitched 3-D feathers made with lutradur and Angelina.

Ruffled

MAURA GROGAN

Bridger, MT & Tucson, AZ

My work is evolving as I continue to explore art quilts and push my own creative boundaries. Commonalities in my artwork include my love of color and strong graphic design, attention to detail, and a focus on images that convey strength and resilience. I’m working on examining what is left unsaid or out of view and trying to depict that sensibility in my art.

Commercial fabric and thread, acrylic paint, fused applique, free motion quilted, 2022. Juried into the International Quilt Festival Houston, 2022. Accepted into the All Creatures Exhibit at the Texas Quilt Museum, 2023.

Luisa – Northern Jaguar Reserve 55” x 40”

Exuberance 17.5” x 23”.

Commercial fabric and thread, fused applique, free motion quilted, 2023. Part of Broad Spectrum: Abundant Palette touring museums in Idaho and Montana from 2023 – 2025.

SUZANNE WARREN

Missoula, MT

My inspiration comes from the abundant natural world around me and my move to Big Sky country provides ample opportunities. I take lots of photographs while hiking and traveling, often returning to a photo when designing a piece. My passion for fabric dyeing and surface design has led to inspiration in the unexpected shapes, lines, and colors that emerge in the cloth. Sometimes the initial design of the piece influences the selection of fabrics and sometimes my hand dyed and printed fabrics drive the ultimate design of the piece – this interplay is a fascinating dance in my attempt to get to the essence of what I am trying to communicate.

Forests awe and inspire. Places of beauty, tranquility and timelessness, they provide the opportunity to reflect and be still; to look inward and explore.

Complex Forest 36x42

Falling into Spring

28x36

Spring starts its unfolding with shoots and buds of green emerging in an almost imperceptible manner. A closer inspection reveals many shades and tints of greens and yellows bursting forth with hope for the new season. As spring turns into summer and moisture becomes more scarce, this stress yields its own beauty in an array of expanded colors and patterns.

CHRISTINE MULLANEY

Red Lodge, MT

Creating fiberart is how I express the beauty of nature around me. I am a native Montanan and the Big Sky landscape inspires me. I spent forty some years cutting and piecing fabrics together; lately I am creating whole cloth art using hand-made screens, dyes, thickened dyes, masking, fabric paints, resists, discharge and whatever tools I can find. My hand guided machine quilting and thread painting add depth.

Winter Birch

Summer Birch

Garden Valley, ID PAT BUDGE

I often say that I compose my memories. I remember places I’ve been, people I’ve met; I remember landscapes and colors, song titles and lyrics, fragments of conversations. And, I remember my impressions.

The imagery I use incorporates the bits and pieces of letters, chopped-up geometric shapes, and repetitive units.

Machine piecing is my major technique, sewing together shapes and lines that have been both free-hand and precision cut. Most of my work uses commercial solid cotton fabric. The closely-spaced quilting stitches are sewn blending the thread color to each individual fabric color and provide texture, giving life to a flat piece of constructed fabric.

Spin The Carousel

My Merry Men

RHONDA SCHMELTZER

Worland, WY

My art crosses the boundaries of quilting, fine art, and photography. Blending fabrics that I have hand dyed, paint poured and photos into a cohesive final art piece. I use fabric as the medium to explore texture and color, incorporating my love of photography, painting and dyeing.

Nature is used as a focus of many of my photos which are a central part of each fiber art. The paint pours and dyed fabrics are integrated into the pieces with other fabrics. The use of color in each piece is dictated first by the photo and feeling I want the art to invoke.

27”w x 29”h

Made with hand dyed fabric, original photograph, and paint pour all on cotton fabric. 2019 . This fiber art quilt has one of our many beautiful Wyoming winter sunrises as its focal point. The blue sky extends into the random piecework with a paint pour at the bottom of the photo.

Fire In the Clouds

Made with hand dyed fabric, original photograph, and paint pour all on cotton fabric. 2019 . Tulips are always a sign of spring. Bright colors in the paint pour echo the colors of the tulips.

Springs Melody

24”w x 22”h

Kalispell, MT SALLY GLUTTING

Quilts can be everywhere - on a bed, on the wall, on a table, in a window, on a card, or even outside. Sally Glutting, quilter and fiber artist, has been putting quilts and fiber art into everyday life for the last 35 years.

Cloth, fibers, thread, and beads are transformed into imaginative fiber art with a variety of surface design techniques, including eco printing, dyeing, rusting, stamping, printing as well as hand and machine stitching. It is all about interesting texture and details, and color. Sally goes where the stitch takes her. Nature is a favorite inspiration. Current series include labyrinths, faerie gardens and peace art.

Not everything is black and white. Tiny seeds of kindness are planted in this forest. The trees are made from leftover strips of prayer flag fabrics. Other materials include snow dyed fabric and beads. Machine applique and stitch, machine quilted, hand beaded.

Labyrinth: Peace and Healing

23”x23”

2022

A labyrinth is a winding pattern whose single path leads to a central core. They can be found all across the world, spanning many ages, cultures and faiths. Labyrinths are a path for prayer, bringing calmness and balance.

Snow dyed gauze and cotton,perle cotton thread, beads. Machine quilted and hand beaded.

AUDREY HYVONEN

Kalispell, MT

The themes I explore in my work always circle back to exploring some sort of tension: Hold/release, accept/reject, binary/non-binary, strength/vulnerability. I appreciate the medium of quilts as a soft entry into potentially hard conversations about loaded topics and use my social collaborations to facilitate some of those opportunities.I make quilts with commercial fabrics, natural imagery and abstract representation. As a textile artist, I explore traditional and mosaic piecework, layered collage and mark making through quilt texture. As a community artist, I invite the public to interact with my art making as an invitation to enter into new conversations.

In this project, the jagged stripes and the high contrast colors of the flag are a nod to our current political atmosphere and resulting mood of our people as a nation.

White Lightening Flag 100” x 49” 2022.

False Dichotomies 59” x 47” 2017.

False Dichotomies (I Don’t Fit in Your Box)” explores the pervasive black and white thinking of our largely gendered society and insists on thoughtful reflection to deepen or widen that thinking. Drawing from the traditional Victorian era, black and white hexagonal tiles resonate specifically with current bathroom access battles in this life-size work presenting a blended human figure composed of split iconic gendered bathroom signs.