未知のもの (The Unknown) 29 x 30 inches | 74 x 76 cm | 2019
QUICK NOTES
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Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc. (SAQA) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt. Through exhibitions, resources, publications, and membership, we seek to increase appreciation for the art quilt as a fine art medium and to support our members in their artistic and professional growth.
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BOARD MEMBERS
PRESIDENT
Lilo Bowman Fort Worth, Texas
VICE PRESIDENT
Kathie Kerler Portland, Oregon
ACTING SECRETARY
Clara Nartey West Haven, Connecticut
TREASURER
Shannon Conley Moore, Oklahoma
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Holly Brackmann Ukiah, California
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Shin-hee Chin McPherson, Kansas
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Susie Floyd Goodman Bloomington, Indiana
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Michael McCormick Tualatin, Oregon
Kestrel Michaud West Melbourne, Florida
Candice Phelan Boynton Beach, Florida
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EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Martha Sielman Hebron, Connecticut
Diane Howell Chandler, Arizona
Photo by BENMA Photo
SAQA Journal Gallery premieres
by Diane Howell
This issue marks the publication of the first SAQA Journal Gallery , a juried print exhibition of member artwork. This year, forty stunning art quilts were selected by a juror panel made up of Nancy Bavor, Alice Beasley, and Linda Colsh. The works represent a wide range of techniques and styles. We couldn’t be prouder of this collection, and hope you enjoy it and look forward to next year’s rendition.
You’ll notice some changes in this issue. Our usual features, from
Featured Artist to Member Gallery, will return in the first issue of 2025. In their place, we have focused on how quilt artists are working today and how their artistic endeavors define the art quilt as fine art. Luana Rubin of eQuilter.com and textile writer D Wood contribute articles that give you a world view of textile trends. I asked our members how they are approaching surface design. You were all so excited to share that information! You talked about everything from beading to ruling
Plan now to attend our 2025 SAQA Conference in Florida!
In St. Petersburg, you’ll immerse yourself in a dynamic art scene with world-class galleries, colorful street murals, and captivating museums.
SAQA’s conference is a grand opportunity to network and socialize and be inspired by poignant presentations. Our Special Events Committee has created a schedule of fun activities, informative programs, exhibitions, and more.
See you at the Hilton Bayfront in downtown St. Petersburg!
pens. You proved that you love to make art. Especially in the case of ruling pens, where ink is distributed from between two adjustable blades (oh my!), you made it clear that you know how to roll with the muses. Thanks to everyone who submitted work for SAQA Journal Gallery And thanks to our readers who make putting together this publication worthwhile. Enjoy the read—and the view of all gorgeous work. ■
Art Quilts: Fine Art Throughout Time
by Luana Rubin
Humans love to categorize things. We live in an increasingly chaotic world, and to find some sense of clarity, we like to put topics in big boxes. Often we unconsciously take the easiest path, and divide thoughts into two boxes: black and white, right and wrong, art and craft. Somewhere in the mists of quilt history, we allowed textile art (often made by women) to be separated from fine art. The things that are made from fabric are part of a very long spectrum that ranges from the canvas sails on ships to highly intricate embroidery. Somewhere in between is the segment that includes patchwork quilts and art quilts. How can we define the dividing point on that continuum? To know what is fine art and what is not?
Instead of focusing on what is not fiber art, let’s put our attention on what is fine textile art. The contemporary art world allows artists to label some pretty bizarre creations as art, so how about giving the artist—the textile artist—permission to decide if what they create is art? Arguments about what is art, craft, or fine art are a waste of time when we could be in the studio creating art.
As with all true art, fiber artists don’t create so that somebody else can decide if it is good or bad, art or craft, and so forth. We create because we must. We make art because it is
an impulse that cannot be denied. We find our peace, our healing, our passion through creating art. We are the gods and goddesses of our own creations—and we call it good.
Do you remember the first time you were exposed to the concept of making art with fabric? You were probably unconsciously chasing that idea before you realized that making art and stitching art could be one and the same thing. For me, it was a joyful explosion, an epiphany of cosmic proportions. After designing garments (including three-dimensional draping on dress forms), creating printed textiles, plein air painting, and fifteen years’ of weekly figure painting with a live model, the day that I realized I could make fine art with fabrics, and that an art quilt could hang on the wall, was the first day of the rest of my creative life.
Over many decades and many museum visits around the world, I have watched how others respond to textile art and the messages that are often stitched or woven into the work. I have watched how visitors react with surprise and delight to the late Faith Ringgold’s art quilts at the Guggenheim and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Bisa Butler’s portrait of Harriet Tubman at the National Museum of African American History is hung so high on the wall
Magda Gąsowska Forgotten Stories - Woman from Urzecz
exhibited at the 2024 Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, UK
that many do not immediately realize it is constructed from printed fabrics. There is a revelation that unfolds from the viewer as they realize these works are made with textiles. It is clear that many viewers feel they are more approachable and somehow more relatable than a varnished and framed painting.
This includes stitched and woven works of art that are hundreds of
years old. These historic tapestries and embroidery pieces were often constrained by the mores of their time, but they manage to tell powerful stories and convey emotions through a visual narrative, often hidden in symbols. Many contemporary textile artists give a nod to these influences, inspired by Klimt, William Morris, and others who occupied the twodimensional space between design/
illustration/paint and textiles. No matter how much we try to divide the visual world into polarized opposites, the most fertile place for creativity is somewhere in the middle.
Over the last ten years we have seen incredible talent spring forth from the middle ground between modern quilting and contemporary art quilts. We could say, if a modern quilter and an art quilter had a baby, they would
Joanne Hannon Shaw
Our Happy Camper
43 x 65 inches | 109 x 165 cm| 2024
As exhibited at the 2024 Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, UK
Chris Lynn Kirsch Oak Leaf and Swirl
50 x 54 inches | 127 x 137 cm | 2019
As exhibited at the 2024 Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, UK
Irene Roderick Tryst 82 x 64 inches | 208 x 163 cm | 2024
Maria Shell Tiny Bubbles 43 x 40 inches | 109 x 102 cm | 2022
Photo by Chris Arend
produce artists such as Maria Shell or Irene Roderick, whose amazingly intricate abstract artworks boggle our minds, bursting past descriptors from either category. The middle ground between traditional quilting and contemporary quilting continues to produce creative geniuses like Colette Dumont, whose original appliqué and embroidery designs elevate the concept of a symmetrical mandala. The influence of modern quilting has brought on an explosion of abstract quilting, just as digital photography helped to expand early pictorial quilting. The big tent of art quilts continues to expand, by planting seeds of creativity in the fertile ground between the broad modern concept and these adjacent fiber art movements. Why is that middle place so fertile? Because we wander into that empty space between the two areas we love, and we create something new that is our own pure and very personal expression. It is a mixture of two things just waiting to be given a name. It is a seedling that may grow for many years, then put down roots and spread its own branches, inviting others to come and play. In fact, our family tree of art quilting has many distinct branches, but we are all connected by a solid central trunk: our love of making with our hands and working with fabric.
Long before Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way book was published in 1992, I had the habit of visiting as many museums, galleries, and exhibitions as possible. Now we call this activity the Artist Date. Today we can look at art online on an infinite scale. I save every image that stimulates my creative curiosity, and my laptop’s screen saver randomly cycles through thousands of these
saved images, giving me a spontaneous jolt of inspiration every morning. It’s like pulling a tarot card or a medicine card once a day; it is surprising how often the perfect image shows up to illuminate my daily path. We used to rip pages out of magazines, and today we take a screenshot of the color and design that catches our eye in our digital browsing. These ideas stimulate my brain along with my morning cup of coffee, and then it pours out in unexpected ways when I get to the studio. Art begets art, and it is a river with no beginning and no end. The inspiration and encouragement that we receive through our membership in SAQA is a tributary of that long river that stretches infinitely in both directions, just like that continuum between craft and art.
Those two infinite lines intersect in our art quilts, and in SAQA. There is a third vertical line that intersects these two lines, and that connects us to all the artists who are making textile art on every continent around the world. The art quilt is a worldwide trend and phenomenon, even inspiring off-planet artists to explore their creativity through fiber. Karen Nyberg famously stitched a quilt block while floating weightlessly on the International Space Station. The last Tokyo Quilt Festival in January 2020 saw attendees from China, Korea, Taiwan, Russia, the United States, and elsewhere. What was once an insular event was in the process of expanding to an international community when the pandemic brought the event to a grinding halt.
The more we travel, the more we discover traditions of what we would call textile art. For instance,
Luana Rubin Stardust Mothers
50 x 38 inches | 127 x 97 cm | 2022
Bara Bartosova Wave
46 x 35 inches | 117 x 89 cm | 2020
As exhibited at the 2024 Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, UK
when I led tours to see the polar bears in Churchill, Canada, we would visit the felt “art quilts” by the Inuit people, which hang in the large community building. The most interesting art quilts in other countries include an influence of their own traditional folk culture. This is what I look for when I go to the Birmingham (U.K.) Festival of Quilts—the biggest quilt show in Europe. The art quilt movement is as much about community as it is about making art. Part of the lure and longevity of the movement is the support that we find when we gather with other textile artists. Gathering for dinner with SAQA artists in Birmingham, and being able to discuss their work on display in the show, was a complete circle of making, sharing, and supporting each other’s artwork.
Just as many illustrators of the 20th century, including Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish, are now collected and valued as fine artists, innovative textile art is being recognized and valued as fine art as time passes. There are already art quilts that have been sold in the multiple six figures. I believe it is only a matter of time until they are valued in the millions. We may not see it in our lifetime, but it is coming. That is also a timeline that stretches out beyond the horizon, and savvy collectors are finding their own place on that continuum. Find your spot on the quilt continuum, and make your mark! ■
Luana Rubin is a SAQA Juried Artist who resides in Boulder, Colorado; a Bernina Ambassador; and the founder and co-owner of eQuilter.com. You can view her work at www.luanarubin.com.
inspiration spirituality healing GRIEF peace
Hope by Karen Mendler
Surface design roundup: What you’re doing today
by Diane Howell
Carolyn Mazloomi prints, stencils, and paints. Jane Dunnewold likes to use a heat press. Linda Colsh prints and stains, her term for painting fabric.
All of these techniques—and many more—fall under the umbrella of surface design, increasingly integral to today’s art quilts.
“Surface design offers a wide variety of techniques and approaches that elevate the visual and tactile qualities of fabric. It makes the quilt more visually engaging,” Mazloomi says in an email from her studio in West Chester, Ohio.
“Almost all of my work involves surface design—mostly screenprinting and painting on fabric. A lot of my screen-printing is done with thermal image screens,” Colsh writes from Middletown, Maryland. Much of her work includes screen-printed images of women. One of her latest figures is of a woman feeding birds, printed on her hand-painted fabric. The image is biding its time before it appears in a new art quilt. Colsh’s painted fabric generally enjoys a lively production cycle. “My painting is better described as staining: I use very diluted acrylic paints on fabric and layer with other fabrics and plastic sheeting for the improvised patterns as the paints mix and blend together during drying.”
From Kyle, Texas, Dunnewold sums up the possibilities: “The broader the acceptance of a variety of media as contributors to surface design, the better, in my opinion. I may not want to use every tool in my toolbox, but having an assortment of tools allows an artist to pick and choose until
the right combination is achieved to make distinctive and personal work, and that’s a worthy goal for every artist in the field.”
What’s trending
Dunnewold is a surface design trailblazer. A past president of Surface Design Association, she also is the author of several books, including Complex Cloth and Art Cloth: A Guide to Surface Design on Fabric . In 2016, North Light Books published Creative Strength Training: Prompts, Exercises and Stories to Inspire Artistic Genius . Her archives were recently acquired by the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska. She has the background needed to look forward.
The gel plate has a bright future, and is one of the tools Dunnewold is using today. “The gel plate allows artists to explore the printed surface in ways regular tools like stamps and stencils don’t make possible. There is still a lot to be explored with the gel plate—especially since the plates are getting larger—which makes the prints more versatile. Artists are using the plate in increasingly sophisticated ways.” Right now, she is making a series of portraits using clothing as the design element on the plate, enhanced with embroidery and hand quilting, usually on silk habotai.
Like the gel plate, Dunnewold says that botanical printing is adding innovation and interest to the field because it so clearly ties artists to the importance of the natural world and natural materials. She is also making botanically printed
Carolyn Mazloomi
Rainy Day Twins
Linda Colsh
silk fabrics using the heat press; The Earth Heals Herself is one example. “I print the fabric using real leaves and flowers and then hand color it, add embroidery in Appletons crewel wool, and hand stitch to quilt.” The face of the Earth on this work is a solvent transfer on silk.
“I’m partial to using the heat press, since that’s what I’ve pioneered, but there are a vast set of textures and colors that can be accomplished by boiling and steaming. So once again, the potential is unlimited and explorations lead to even greater control and clarity in the prints.”
Surface design staples—fiberreactive and acid dyeing—are still popular and probably always will be, Dunnewold says. “Ice dyeing isn’t a newcomer to the field, but has gained in popularity as it has become more refined. Natural dyes and pigments are revolutionizing what can be accomplished with color, and that’s exciting. Natural dyes are no longer relegated to beiges, browns, greens, and gray.”
Mixed media components have also enriched the field, she notes. “Spackling, paper collage, and the assorted textural gels and mediums allow artists to add dimension and unexpected interest to the pieces they are creating.”
And that expression is important. Mazloomi says, “Surface design adds depth and interest to my work. I use it to convey personal themes and cultural narratives that allow a much deeper connection with viewers of my quilts.” Her piece, Rainy Day Twins, makes use of printing, stenciling, painting, and quilting.
Patty Kennedy-Zafred Roe, White & Blue
23 x 67 inches | 58 x 170 cm | 2022
Jane Dunnewold
The Earth Heals Herself
44 x 60 inches | 112 x 152 cm | 2023
Process roundup
As these three artists illustrate, surface design techniques used by SAQA members are numerous. A Facebook question seeking favorite techniques revealed a creative group of makers. One of the most humorous responses was from Wendy L. Starn, who wrote: “Paint, glue resist, thread, fusing, dyeing, stamping, basically everything." We could end
this story right there, but we would miss the specifics.
Many members responded that they love screen-printing. Maggie Vanderweit Meredith employs deconstructed screen-printing with thickened dyes. Patty KennedyZafred screen-prints over vintage materials or hand-dyed fabric.
Regina Dunn and Marilyn Clulow use thermofax screens.
Photo by Larry Berman
Then there are the stitchers.
Glenda Mah says she loves to use stitch resist to create pattern and texture: “a simple needle and thread—the magic waiting to happen!” Phillippa K. Lack works with twin needles and decorative stitches on her Bernina 790. Lena Meszaros stitches together multiple layers of organza and burns away the unstitched portions with a heat gun.
Sonya Prchal thread paints to create realistic fur on animals. Related to stitch is the end result of a process Geneviève Attinger employs. She deconstructs and reconstructs fabric, playing with the remaining threads.
Paint is a also well-loved technique. Diane Núñez paints with thickened dyes. Sherri Lipman McCauley applies paint with a syringe, literally creating whirls of excitement.
Regina Marzlin uses a gel plate to print multiple layers on fabric.
Sarah Entsminger uses water soluble color pencils to create fabric “that matches the idea in my head.” Leilani Purvis loves to shade areas in her pieces with inks such as Inktense or Tsukineko.
Many want to do more specialized surface design such as shibori or batik. “I love how (batik) allows me to create images and patterns and my fabric paints range from translucent to opaque to metallic. On silk it can be magical,” says Rebecca Szetela. Karen Miller uses the Japanese technique Katazome to produce patterned fabric. In this fabric-dyeing process, a resist is applied through a stencil.
Stamping is another favorite design option. Denise Bean makes stamps with linoleum blocks.
Deborah Boschert creates stamps
with sticky-back fun foam and paints with acrylic paint.
Design variety is never-ending. Terry Howard Grant uses a Silhouette cutter to create intricate designs. Ann Baldwin May creates texture with unparallel tucks. Heidi Zielinski does bead embellishment: “I love the interplay of fabric with the hard beads and the way light plays on them.” And serendipity plays its hand, as pointed out by Paula Clements Dean. “I like to use tools that I can’t control. This keeps perfectionism from taking over. A ruling pen is my favorite tool.”
For those who don’t know, a ruling pen has two metal blades between which ink is placed. What could happen? Art, of course. ■
Diane Howell is the SAQA Journal editor. She resides in the Phoenix Metro.
37.5 x 25.5 inches | 95 x 65 cm | 2022
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Surface design is a vital presence in today’s art world, expressing political, social and economic issues found in everyday life. In researching this subject and its parameters I thought it prudent to virtually explore a recent exhibition. London’s Barbican Art Gallery mounted such a display in February 2024 entitled Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art. The work of the selected fifty international artists is documented in a catalog that includes essays by the exhibition’s curators and relevant critics. The contribution by Denise Ferreira da Silva, entitled On Art and Subversion, states: “the term stitch refers at once to what I will call four moments of the artwork: material, form, technique, and content.” Material is self-explanatory; form is how the materials are treated; technique specifies assemblage; and content is the story.
To supplement my own investigation of current trends in surface design, I solicited commentary from three fiber artists who are also academics. I wanted to tap into their proximity to students and peers who are producing avant-garde work in their various locations. The artists each provided a list of suggestions via email. Coincidentally, the surface design trends they noted fit into Ferreira da Silva’s four moments.
Vera Siachen
Approx. 80 x 24 inches | 203 x 61 cm
Material and form
Rachel MacHenry, an assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University—whose specialty is natural dyes, traditional techniques, and bio-regional fibers and materials—lists trends that concern material, form, and technique. Her suggestions are based on her own practice as well as her research environment. She cites a global natural dye revival, whether it be plants, minerals, or insects from the local environment, or species like indigo that are traditional dyeing agents; examples can be seen on www.folkfibers.com. In addition to coloring threads and fabric, artists are using natural dyes for screen- and block-printing, techniques which consider the health of the maker, user, and the planet, as can be seen at www.monsterdesign.com.br.
Shibori and other resist-dyeing methods are part of the revival, and contemporary batik, in which the artist uses non-traditional resists with non-traditional tools, results in exciting surface design. Also on MacHenry’s list is ecoprinting whereby botanicals are applied directly to fabric to create unique designs, with examples to be seen at www.botanicalprintalchemie.com.
In my own travels I have observed treated flowers and leaves incorporated into textiles. Another trend is block printing, an ancient technique that requires carving a pattern into
Mara
Photo by Drashta Sarvaiya
This design is produced by Mara Vera in Cornwall, UK, and is an outstanding example of block printing.
wood, linoleum, or even a potato. The block is dipped in colorant and pressed onto fabric. Once deemed to be exotic, such patterning is applicable to single and multiple textile designs. Examples of this bold technique can be seen at www.maravera. co.uk.
In terms of stitching, MacHenry cites visible mending and Japanese sashiko, plain embroidery that embellishes or reinforces a garment. MacHenry’s mention of sashiko reminds me that surface embroidery no longer requires a range of virtuoso stitches. The prevalence of straight and back stitching using eclectic threads, including human hair, is a notable trend. Not only does plain stitching provide surface embellishment, but also lends an aesthetic of authenticity and handmade value.
Technique
CALL FOR ENTRY: JUNE 1-30, 2023
Technique, by Ferreira da Silva’s definition, amounts to the way that elements of an object are combined. Those of you who watched Olympian Grace Latz’s virtual Textile Talk presentation in August 2024, hosted by the International Quilt Museum, will recall her design for Full Circle, an ideal example of technique. This quilt is constructed of thousands of snippets of fabric from used sports clothing as well as the bits form the five Olympic rings and their background. Latz believes that her proposal was accepted because it was a cooperative effort involving volunteers from France to cut the cloth and assemble the piece. The quilt’s composition (piecing), method of manufacture (group effort) and even its 6 x 10-foot dimension are all part of contemporary surface design.
CALL FOR E
Marjolein Dallinga Cocoon
47 x 24 x 6 inches |120 x 60 x 15 cm | 2016 Photo by Lucien Lisabelle
CALLS FOR ENTRY
GLOBAL EXHIBITIONS
NOW!
CALL FOR ENTRY: JANUARY 1-31, 2025
NATURE’S CANVAS
CALL FOR ENTRY: MARCH 1-31, 2025
AI: ARTISTIC INTERPRETATIONS
CALL FOR ENTRY: APRIL 1-30, 2025
POLLINATORS
CALL FOR ENTRY: NOVEMBER 1-30, 2025
V IRT U AL G A LLER IES
BELOW THE SURFACE
CALL FOR ENTRY: FEBRUARY 1-28, 2025
DRAWN TO LINES
CALL FOR ENTRY: MAY 1-31, 2025
BREAKING BOUNDARIES
CALL FOR ENTRY: AUGUST 1-31, 2025
MADE IT SPLASH
CALL FOR ENTRY: NOVEMBER 1-30, 2025
Jessica Hemmings, my second primary source for this article, mentions “scaling up” as a trend. Hemmings was a frequent contributor to the now-shuttered Fiberarts magazine. She continues to write as a professor of Craft at the University of Gothenburg in Gothenburg, Sweden. Hemmings mentions the work of Norwegian Hanne Friis who hand dyes, stitches, and sculpts nylon organza that cascades from skylight to floor. Such work is in the realm of installation art, yet scrutiny of Hanne’s website, www. hannefriis.com, or attendance at exhibitions outside your comfort zone can spark ideas for more humble projects. Another example of scaling up comes from Ghanian Ibrahim Mahama whose work, Purple Hibiscus—comprising over 6,500 square feet of purple and pink handwoven fabric—covered the facade of the Barbican Centre in London from April to August 2024. The fabric, woven in
strips, was sewn together by hundreds of women and embellished with about 100 batakaris—robes formerly worn by Ghanaian kings. Purple Hibiscus is literally over the top in terms of size. However, the assemblage of fabric pieces and superimposition of memorable textiles will be familiar to many quilters. On a smaller scale, MacHenry listed Korean bojagi, a style of fabric piecing that, depending on the material—silk, organza, or muslin—can highlight transparency and seaming.
Content
Moving on to the final moment, the story or meaning expressed in the work, Hemmings suggests the frequency of “explicit sexual imagery often blurred or softened when it appears on the textile.” Greg Climer’s quilts, seen in a July 2024 Textile Talk, demonstrate how his textile-rendered gay men are draped in intentional vagueness. Another example of this topic is the work of artist Erin M. Riley of Brooklyn, New York. She creates handwoven, hand-dyed wool tapestries. Her work concentrates on gender, featuring women and girls that are often based on photographs of herself. Her skill at weaving, combined with often startling subject matter that includes topics such as self-harm, nudity, and sexuality, make her tapestries startling, particularly as the work does not feature pleasant subjects.
Climer, my third direct source, is chair of the fashion design program at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, California. Closely aligned with sexuality is the first trend on Climer’s list: identity. With the most recent American election, he cites jingoistic textiles that betray the maker’s allegiance. On a more lasting note, Bisa Butler’s quilts are evidence of exciting
use of color and portraiture that demonstrates the attention to fashion, style, and identity that is ubiquitous in African American culture.
Another artist dealing with identity is Igshaan Adams, who grew up in the segregated township of Bonteheuwel near Cape Town, South Africa. In his tapestry, Heideveld, he riffs on the notion of pathways and the deviations from the dictated routes that Black and Coloured South Africans are forced to take in dealing with apartheid. In addition to addressing identity in surface design, Adams employs loose weaving as well as found and new materials, such as plastic, stone, bone beads, and shells.
Climer suggests that another current theme is focus on location. “I have had students design collections which relied on foraging for materials in their community. One student created natural dyes all found with plants that were local to her home. Another felted foraged southwestern plants into locally sourced wool,” he says. These ideas coincide with MacHenry’s about sustainable dyeing and printing. And speaking of felting, needle felting could be explored as a surface design element, an instance of which I saw at the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair in July 2024. Although felting and needle felting are labor-intensive, a peek at Marjolein Dallinga’s website, www.bloomfelt.com, shows that the process is worth the effort. Dallinga, who has made costumes and props for enterprises like Cirque du Soleil, teaches workshops at her studio an hour from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Dallinga’s sculpture is organic and its frequent depiction in an outdoor setting is indicative of its affinity with nature.
Bisa Butler Parade
88 x 64 inches | 224 x 163 cm | 2024
Photo by Mark Bunger of Image Works
Mixed Moments
It is evident that Ferreira da Silva’s moments overlap. For example, Climer raises the issue of the effect of the digital technology. With the omnipresence of flat screens in our lives, he believes viewers crave real-life tactile objects. This inspiration would fall under the category of content, yet could also be seen as form. Machines like the risograph replicate screen printing but with the same ease as using a photocopier. The technique provides a sense of depth as does screen-printing itself. Surface decoration—such as hand and machine embroidery, ruching, appliqué, beading, and the addition of found objects—all counteract the monotonous planes that assault our senses.
Finally, I return to Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art Regardless of how it is done, surface design is expressing political, social, and economic issues that can no longer be swept under the rug. Singly and collectively, artists are sewing, weaving, dyeing, printing, and felting their feelings about the world around them. Textile art, derided in the past as women’s work, is demonstrating care for humanity and the planet. As Denise Ferreira da Silva so rightly points out in her essay, “Artistic interventions have a crucial role to play in the kind of shift in thinking needed to address the most challenging global issues of our time.” ■
D Wood has a Ph.D. in design studies and is an independent craft scholar whose artist profiles and exhibition reviews have appeared in an international roster of art and design publications. She is the editor of and contributor to Craft Is Political (Bloomsbury, 2021) and is currently undertaking a second volume on the same topic. She lives in Toronto, Canada.
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
Sustainability
San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles
San Jose, California
January 16 - April 13, 2025
Fierce Planets
New England Quilt Museum
Lowell, Massachusetts
January 15 - May 10, 2025
Bearing Witness
Mills Station Arts & Culture Center
Rancho Cordova, California
January 16 - February 22, 2025
Art Evolved: Intertwined
Fuller Craft Museum
Brockton, Massachusetts
March 1 - August 31, 2025
Fur, Fangs, Feathers & Fins
Oklahoma State University Museum of Art
Stillwater, Oklahoma
May 27, 2025 - July 26, 2025
SAQA is dedicated to bringing thoughtprovoking, cutting-edge artwork to venues across the globe. Our members continue to challenge the boundaries of art and change perceptions about contemporary fiber art.
Photo courtesy of the Detroit Zoo of Fur, Fangs, Feathers & Fins exhibition
A CURATED PRINT EXHIBITION OF ART QUILTS
JOURNAL
A CURATED PRINT EXHIBITION OF ART QUILTS
Galler y
JOURNAL
SAQA Journal Gallery Premiere
Our first SAQA Journal Gallery is a showcase of work that represents the beauty and diversity of the contemporary art quilt movement. The forty artists included here are united by their membership in Studio Art Quilt Associates, but their styles are distinct, moving, and thought-provoking.
This colorful, inspiring collection was selected by a juror panel made up of Nancy Bavor, Alice Beasley, and Linda Colsh. ■
Juror Statements
Nancy Bavor
It was an honor and privilege to jury this collection. I was particularly delighted to share the process with two artists whose work I have long admired, Alice Beasley and Linda Colsh. The quality of the over 500 entries made the selection of just forty pieces a challenge. As a juror, I always look for work that appeals to me visually and emotionally. Sometimes bold color or design draws me in. Sometimes a subtle and delicate work keeps me coming back. Or sometimes the work just makes me smile.
In addition to selecting the individual works, we also wanted to consider how the exhibition would look as a whole. We tried to select pieces that represented the enormous range of works submitted, from abstract to representational, twoand three-dimensional work, and the wide variety of artistic styles and techniques.
To those of you selected, congratulations and please keep creating inspiring work. To those not selected, please keep creating inspiring work and developing an original voice.
Alice Beasley
I was the kid in the eye-candy shop privileged to wander the digital aisles and view the variety of approaches that artists take in our shared medium of fiber: realistic, whimsical, abstract, colorful, stark, minimalist, coded, impressionistic.
It was all there. For my part, these were some of my judging criteria: technical competence, originality, and emotionally expressive work; art that revealed the complex bonds between relationships; pieces that were fun; and art that pushed the limits of the artist’s chosen style. There was far more excellent art to choose from than could be accommodated in the space allowed. Regrettably, some fine work remained on the cutting room floor. Hopefully, our final selections reflect the best of the quality, depth and variety of the more than 500 submissions that we reviewed.
Linda Colsh
When I opened the collection of submitted works, I thought of the words of Robert Shaw: “What has come to be called ‘The Art Quilt’ is a child of many mothers and incantations.” Before us were more than 500 children of the best artists of the Studio Art Quilt Associates, each submission the artist’s incantation to inspire a moment of magic and wonder. Nancy, Alice, and I looked at each piece many times, working to evaluate design, creativity, and vision. Does the artist have something to say and is that message clear? Is the composition effective, straightforward, and powerful? Do the photography and detail images best present that message? Does craftsmanship support the artist’s vision? After much deliberation and discussion, we arrived at forty artworks that, in the words of our charge, “showcase the beauty and diversity of the contemporary art quilt movement.”
SJG Cover details (top to bottom): Scatter by Dianne Firth; Standpoint: A Self-Portrait by Judith Quinn Garnett; Stuff of Dreams V: portal by Judy Hooworth; and Veterans: The Old Lion by Holly Lei Cole
Linda Anderson
Eugene, Oregon | USA
Mankind's capacity for inhumanity toward others is unlimited. Many around the world become collateral damage in the assaults inflicted by those in power. This image tells but one of many stories of the flight for life and safety in Ukraine. To leave behind Life as one knows it for the unknown is forced daily upon thousands worldwide.
MATERIALS: Cotton fabric, textile paints
TECHNIQUES: Hand painted, raw-edge appliquéd, free motion stitched
The Exodus
Photo by
Jamie Hamel-Smith
Discerning
38 x 67 inches | 97 x 170 cm | 2021
Bobbi Baugh
DeLand, Florida | USA
A body of water next to trees provides rich ground for imagination and investigation. What’s real, what’s reflected? What’s up, what’s down? And what is beyond it all? When I become interested in a landscape, I rarely depict just what I see. I explore it with the same kind of “digging-in” that I draw on for my storytelling works. This scene is based on
photographs I took of a small stream beside the road near my home.
Inspired by and in memory of two men who moved me personally—one was my brother, Mikey. Following an earlier, more-conventional lifestyle, Mikey and his best friend, Thomas, lived their passion outside of the box as street musicians for more than fifteen years in Key West, Florida. This occupation, only marginally income-producing, often required them to be “Urban Campers.”
The rainbow phoenix hides from rain, but when the sun comes out, he streaks joyously across the sky, leaving a colorful arc in his path. And that, children, is how rainbows are made—based on an ancient legend that I just made up. As a textile sculptor, I enjoy molding, stitching, stuffing, and twisting bits of fabric into colorful three-dimensional birds, layering more fabric for texture, and adding trims and other embellishments to create character. Gradually, the bird’s personality emerges. But it’s not something I
plan. It’s almost as if the bird is telling me who it is, and I am simply an obedient conduit. The result is as much a surprise to me as it is to the viewer.
TECHNIQUES: Hand and machine quilted, hand and machine embroidered, wire-sculpted
Cameron Park, California | USA
My artwork celebrates the beauty and artistry that can be found in the most unexpected places. The Orange Store is a visual symphony of the tools and other products we can find in our local big-box hardware stores.
MATERIALS: Commercial cotton fabric
TECHNIQUES: Machine pieced, machine quilted
Deb Cashatt
The Orange Store
Shin-hee Chin
McPherson, Kansas | USA
My work is inspired by The Coming Of Wisdom With Time, a poem by William Butler Yeats.
“Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth.”
Larry Clifford
Hampden, Maine | USA
My BiblioQuilts are created using repurposed books that were salvaged from basements, attics, and public libraries. I use every part of every book—the cover, the pages, the spine—breathing new life into my materials with the addition of dyes, inks, and acrylics. This particular series (Path of Totality) was inspired by the solar eclipse that occurred in the northeastern United States (and other parts of the
I used an old heavy wool blanket for a quilt top several years ago. I worked on my quilt for almost two years and it is part of the fabric of my life.
MATERIALS: Recycled wool blankets
TECHNIQUES: Randomly woven and stitched
country) on April 8, 2024. The majority of the source material (discarded hardcovers) came from public libraries located along the path of totality in Maine.
TECHNIQUES: Enhanced with mixed media, collaged, glued
59.5 x 54.5 inches | 151 x 138 cm | 2020
Path of Totality I, II, and III
24 x 24 inches | 61 x 61 cm | 2024
Trees in Late Autumn
Veterans: The Old Lion
52 x 50 inches | 132 x 127 cm | 2022
Judith Content
Palo Alto, California | USA
When the Covid-19 pandemic began in early 2020, we all thought it would disappear soon, but it didn't. It went on and on and on. In this piece I try to express my feeling of falling, ever faster. I would eventually hit bottom and learn to climb. When I made this piece, however, I didn't know that yet.
Holly Lei Cole
Triangle, Virginia | USA
This lion was inspired (with permission) by a photo of the oldest lion in Kenya, taken by Leighton Lum. I recomposed the image and used an army surplus blanket, an old damaged tarp, cheesecloth, and hand embroidery to express both the toughness and fragility of this threatened species. Vanishing species
Descent
43 x 64 inches | 109 x 163 cm | 2020
MATERIALS: Thai silk, bamboo leaves as a resist, MiyakoZome dyes, sodium hydrosulphate discharge solution
are veterans in the war against encroachment on their territories and the battle against changing climates.
MATERIALS: Old tarp, fusible web, army blanket, cheesecloth, fabric paint
TECHNIQUES: Drawn, painted, free-motion quilted, hand embroidered
Photo by James Dewrance
Changing Poisonous Thoughts
39 x 28 inches | 99 x 71 cm | 2023
Sue LaWall Cortese
Holland, Michigan | USA
This piece was in a SAQA regional exhibition which challenged us to use A Drop of Emerald Poison in an artwork. In the 1800s, green dye was made with arsenic, which led to the poison being absorbed through skin contact. I used this prompt to create a work that included thermofaxed fabric, with text to counter typical self-talk which can be destructive. The broken circles represent the hope of breaking
the cycle or reoccurrence of those harmful thoughts. I used other hand-dyed fabric, including indigo-dyed fabrics, and a drop of emerald green.
The art of handwriting a letter is slowly fading into distant memory. We will be left with blank screens. To handle a paper, probably written with a quill and ink, is to connect with the writer.
MATERIALS: Cotton fabric, card, antique paper, Japanese matting, paint
TECHNIQUES: Hand and machine stitched, painted, assembled
Fenella Davies
Cocoon / White
Chiaki Dosho
Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa-ken | Japan
I am creating a series of works called Mayu with the theme of life and death. This work was created with the image of birth. I think white is the color that starts everything. I use new fabrics, old Japanese kimonos, and clothes I used to wear. We wear many clothes during our lives. They capture many memories of my life. Just finding a small piece brings me back to that memory. That is my living proof— my precious memories.
MATERIALS: Old Japanese kimono (silk), wool, synthetic fibers, cotton fabric, linen, ink, acrylic paint, shrink sheet
Historically, ships have embodied both our bravest and our most predatory impulses. This bone boat is the last in a series of human artifacts made of cloth-covered plastic bones. In addition to evoking mortality, bones can stand in for history, archeology, and our collective past. Bones can also be gestural, animating and personalizing an otherwise inanimate object. I hope this bone boat conveys
all these things, reminding viewers of the dynamic complexities of our human story.
MATERIALS: Collaged and quilted cloth over armature
My work has become more three-dimensional over time. With this piece, I embraced the sculptural form wholeheartedly. The Magnolia Grandiflora's seed pod is hard and unforgiving when stepped on. I am intrigued by the transformation from a beautiful flower to an unyielding seed case. The seed pod form
Dianne Firth
Turner, Australian Capital Territory | Australia
When planting bulbs, one way to determine where to plant them for a natural look is to throw them in the air, then plant them where they land. The color gradation references the life cycle of a flower.
has inspired this and four more pieces in this series, bringing it to life in a soft medium.
MATERIALS: Cotton fabric, other textiles, aluminum wire
TECHNIQUES: Machine quilted, raw-edge appliquéd, thread painted, hand and machine constructed
MATERIALS: Wool and viscose felt, polyester net
TECHNIQUES: Hand-cut elements assemblage between two layers of net, machine-stitched
Magnolia Grandiflora V: Fitzgerald the Seed Pod
Scatter
35.5 x 35.5 inches | 90 x 90 cm | 2023
Photo by Andrew Sikorski
Standpoint: A Self-Portrait
24 x 24 inches | 61 x 61 cm | 2023
Judith Quinn Garnett
Portland, Oregon | USA
This stitched painting evolved over three years, having started during the Covid-19 lockdown. Settled into isolation, I was suddenly confronted by a breast cancer diagnosis. All my big “makes” in the studio were postponed for treatment and recovery. Over a year later, I finally returned to this painting and the stitch. All that we have been through with
cancer and Covid led to a new standpoint on life, love, family, and friends. I am so very grateful.
MATERIALS: Cotton canvas, gesso, acrylic paint, UVLS top coat
TECHNIQUES: Painted, stitched, drawn
by Pushdot Studios
Photo
Dundas, Ontario | Canada
Vultures pause for a rest on their journey, and we find ourselves face-to-face.
The title comes from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, 1:
“And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
MATERIALS: Wool, silk, cotton, and other natural and synthetic fibers
TECHNIQUES: Surface woven
Mita Giacomini
Tranquillity
Monique Gilbert-Oversteyns
Bierbeek, Vlaams Brabant | Belgium
Looking at a soft rain shower is all I need to relax. Using only two colors enhances the need for calmness.
MATERIALS: Blue fabric, recycled white table runner, white silk
TECHNIQUES: Direct appliquéd, machine quilted
Photo by
Studio Leemans
Stuff of Dreams V: portal
Judy Hooworth
Morisset, New South Wales | Australia
Blurring the boundaries of what is seen...dreamt... imagined...
MATERIALS: Vintage hand-dyed and commercial cotton fabric, screen prints, water-soluble crayons, textile medium
The deYoung Museum in San Francisco is my go-to destination for inspiration, both inside and out. As an architecture enthusiast, I see artistic opportunities around every corner. The eastern aspect of the museum was in shadow while the tower was highlighted by sunlight.
Reflecting on the past, this is a remembrance of people and places connected by love, utilizing the rose as a symbol. Enlarging many of the images in varying sizes created new concepts for dyes and overlays. The architectural elements, from photos taken in Italy, reflect on the wonder and surprise of finding roses peeking through the cracks of ancient walls, much like a tender memory, emerging vivid and unexpectedly.
Ginkgo trees always put on a show in the autumn, holding their bright yellow leaves for a long time before dramatically dropping them all very quickly, leaving a golden puddle around the tree trunk. The golden leaves swirling across a bright blue sky fill me with joy.
On a walk in her neighborhood, Denise saw a tom turkey and his hen on a house doorstep and snapped a picture fast. With her love of animals, the choice of turkeys for an art quilt makes a lot of sense. For years, she and her husband Richard owned Great Dane mixes, two dogs at a time, and Denise was also a horse trainer.
Denise had a keen sense of design, composition, and color that really shows in this quilt. She was working on the quilt while she was sick with cancer, and even
as she got sicker, she continued working on it. She managed to finish the quilt top, but she did not have a lot of time left, so she asked me if I would finish it for her and submit it after she was gone.
I said yes!
Quilting collaborator Rebecca Szetela
MATERIALS: Cotton fabric
TECHNIQUES: Collaged, free-motion quilted
Lonely Boy and his Hen
Photo by Joe Ofria
Deborah A. Kuster
Hot Springs Village, Arkansas | USA
I celebrated my seventieth birthday by completing a stone for each year of my life. It was an intimate time of reflection and thankfulness. Each stone, covered with my hand-woven, quilted textiles, bears the year’s number with its uniquely symbolic form, color, and texture. The stones are linked and anchored in numerical order, with the possibility of many variable display configurations.
MATERIALS: Handwoven textiles, styrofoam, buttons, beads, nylon fishing line
TECHNIQUES: Woven, machine pieced and quilted, hand embroidered, assembled
70 Stones of Thankfulness
40 x 20 x 20 inches | 102 x 51 x 51 cm | 2023
Sue Lewis
Arvada, Colorado | USA
Once I’d received a diagnosis of osteoporosis, I couldn't get the idea of "brittle bones" out of my head. I felt fragile inside. This quilt gave me solace in creating something beautiful and delicate. When I see the lunaria seed pods, I enjoy the translucence of the pod and seeing the protected seed inside as something enduring. I am inspired by nature and celebrate the imperfections found there. My artwork often includes
Fragile Within II
27 x 17 inches | 69 x 43 cm | 2019
trees, leaves, and rocks, as well as the beauty of degeneration, fading, and renewal. Creating artwork is a healing process for me. I enjoy the contemplation and taking the time to express my feelings in a tactile way.
TECHNIQUES: Hand pieced, hand couched, hand quilted, naturally dyed
Sacred Ground (side a) / Red Sky, Red Water (side b)
Photo by Nick Dubecki
Dominie M. Nash
Bethesda, Maryland | USA
I have long been fascinated with the shape and structure of leaves of all kinds, and by their amazing variety. In 2006, I came across some unusually large leaves. I printed fabric with them and this was the start of a new series, to which I keep returning. In the resulting works, the leaves take center stage, enhanced by accidental patterns created by the printing tools, variable amounts of paint, etc. The stitching echoes the
54 x 37 inches | 137 x 94 cm | 2023
vein patterns of the leaves, or the spaces around them. The relationships between the leaves comprise an important element of the composition.
Multifaceted 36 x 36 x 72 inches | 91 x 91 x 183 cm | 2019
Diane Núñez
Southfield, Michigan | USA
We are all different and unique. Insert yourself amidst the work and become part of the interconnected, intertwined, colorful world of multifaceted heads.
MATERIALS: Cotton fabric, found objects, rubber O-rings, springs, beads, buttons, rubber tubing, aluminum slats, fishing hardware
Looking into the furnace, its dark heart molten and forbidding, with the anticipation of the glowing metal pouring sinuously into the waiting mould.
MATERIALS: Cotton fabric
TECHNIQUES: Machine pieced, machine quilted
Inferno
2023
Photo by David Paterson
Dinah Sargeant
Newhall, California | USA
When the genie showed up, I recalled a childhood fable where three wishes were granted. Making a choice was never easy.
57 x 50 inches | 145 x 127 cm | 2022
MATERIALS: Cotton fabric, paint
TECHNIQUES: Hand painted, machine appliquéd, machine quilted
This Wish
Photo by
Jessica Franz Photography
Karen Schulz
Silver Spring, Maryland | USA
I was in the midst of very tedious and detailed quilting on A Thousand Days, A Thousand Nights when the whole world went into lockdown as a global pandemic was declared. I became very aware of the time distortion that followed. Suddenly a whole sea of time stretched out before me, and the quilting of this piece became a refuge of sorts. Frequently for me, the content of a piece is only revealed in the process of its becoming. I work improvisationally
in the world of abstraction, where my effort in the studio is to create objects that have never been before—to underscore the notion that anything is possible, and human agency is powerful. I am searching and yearning for truth and beauty.
TECHNIQUES: Hand painted, hand dyed, monoprinted, machine pieced, machine stitched
A Thousand Days, A Thousand Nights, Floating in a Sea of Time
Photo by Mark Gulezian/QuickSilver
Flagstaff, Arizona | USA
I based this quilt on a photograph I took of an oyster boat at a dock in Louisiana while I was working with the clean-up operations following the Deep Water Horizon oil spill. Struck by the lines and patterns of the nets and framework of the boat, I wanted to portray those features in this piece.
45 x 31 inches | 114 x 79 cm | 2023
This is the second abstract interpretation from my photograph.
MATERIALS: Cotton fabric
TECHNIQUES: Hand dyed, machine appliquéd, machine quilted
Brenda H. Smith
Oyster Boat 2
A Slice of Candy Apple
60 x 60 inches | 152 x 152 cm | 2022
Reflections Under Water
21 x 39 inches | 53 x 98 cm | 2020
Kate Stiassni
Salisbury, Connecticut | USA
I love the uneven penetration of dyes into the fabric inherent with the technique of pole wrapping, or arashi shibori. While I’ve learned how to replicate certain results, it can still be an unpredictable process with serendipitous outcomes. The imagery in Reflections Under Water was deeply influenced by the power and fragility of the world we inhabit and the dramatic global changes to our climate. In observing the natural elements of my own surroundings more
Kelly Spell
Hixson, Tennessee | USA
I’ve been making circular compositions for as long as I can remember. Curves are a frequent motif in my work—a friendly face I return to again and again. In 2020, I began exploring circles and swirls exclusively, distilling down ideas to find and define my point of view. In this piece, repetitive shapes, a shift in color
and more closely, I feel a sense of alarm, but I also feel awe and optimism in the beauty and enduring harmonies of Nature.
MATERIALS: Procion dyes, cotton, silk organza
TECHNIQUES: Hand dyed with arashi shibori, polewrapped, resist-dyed, discharged-dyed, overdyed, layered, sculpted, hand-knotted, sewn
intensity, and a thoughtful use of negative space combine to create delicious movement and rhythm.
MATERIALS: Cotton fabric
TECHNIQUES: Hand dyed, machine pieced, machine quilted
by Ren Nickson Photography
Photo
the Fire 38 x 40 inches | 97 x 102 cm | 2024
Maggie Vanderweit
Guelph, Ontario | Canada
Fire often represents warmth and safety, but it can also be dangerous. As we approach it, we must be aware and tread carefully.
Trees have been a favorite theme of mine for years. I particularly love the structure of tree barks, and my aim is to capture the very different ways they feel. In this piece, I let my inspiration lead to a threedimensional work that moves between a realistic and an unrealistic point of view.
TECHNIQUES: Painted, bonded, stitched, eroded with a soldering iron and heat tool
37 x 15 x 5.4 inches | 94 x 38 x 14 cm | 2023
Rindenspiel 5
Photo by Danuta Lehmann
Layered Structures #53
48 x 32 inches | 122 x 81 cm | 2020
Barb Wills
Poulsbo, Washington | USA
My artwork is driven by a passion to experiment, allowing my mark making to become my voice. Inspiration and imagery come from the forests, mountains, water, and marks on the ground. I translate this imagery into lines, layers, and values. Trees and fallen branches become the abstracted angles and figures in my work as they support my mark making.
TECHNIQUES: Hand dyed, woodblock printed, machine pieced, machine quilted
Photo by Chris Marchetti
Hope Wilmarth
Houston, Texas, USA
Stacked writing on cloth creates an abstract design that depicts texture and rhythm. The clue to this puzzle can be found in Philippians 4:8 of the Bible.
MATERIALS: Cotton fabric, acrylic paint
TECHNIQUES: Words written horizontally and vertically
Photo by Rick Wells
Forest, Virginia | USA
Like it or not, in life there is constant change. An unexpected twist can send us zigging and zagging in a totally different direction. At times, we can struggle to know which way is up. How do the new pieces fit together? What configuration now makes sense? Adaptation and continued growth are not always easy. They are, however, essential to survival.
