Carrefour V: Tania Tanti, Fiona Lindsay, Janet Bear, He Ok Chang, & Quilts from Kazakhstan

February 9, 2026February 10, 2026 Elizabeth E.1 Comment

This post about the Carrefour European Patchwork show 2025 covers:

• Venue 10: Chapell St. Blaise, with Tania Tanti
• Venue 11: Église St. Nicolas, with a quick look at embroideries sponsored by Guldusi
• Venue 12: Salle Des Fêtes, with Fiona Lindsay, Jenny Bear, Hae Ok Chang, Patchwork Association of Kazakhstan

I have a main Carrefour Quilt Show page that lists all the posts of all the meetings I’ve gone to, and includes the posts from this year too. If I haven’t mentioned it before, you might enjoy these posts more if seen on a desktop computer or even a tablet. Cell phones re-format the layout and can sometimes do strange things to how it looks on the screen.

If you are interested in going to Carrefour, I wrote two posts for them about our travel, and how we put the trip together. You can find them here and here. Their main website is HERE, where you can subscribe to their newsletter (scroll to the bottom).

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Now that the orientation is complete, the story is that last year my husband and I had a chance to go to the Carrefour European Patchwork Show in the Silver Valley, near Colmar France. That’s called the Val d’Argent, in France in the Alsace region, and yes, there is great food and beautiful countryside. One of the things we like about this show is that is spread out over four small towns in the valley, and they use churches and community centers and municipal buildings, so you really get a feel for being in that area.

Venue 10: Chapell St. Blaise

Venue 10 is a small little chapel, the Chapelle St. Blaise, basically a one-room church. I stood there for a long time but that man wouldn’t move from the doorway…so I erased him. (!) Let’s see if this video will embed:

Click on image to start the movie. The voice you hear is the artist, Tania Tanti, talking to some quilters about her technique. Now to see some of her quilts. Many are not pieced, but instead are painted with textile paints then quilted and embellished.

The is quilt that starts the movie, above.

Click on any photo to enlarge. I took detail shots so you could see the amazing amount of work in each of her pieces.

Please click if you want it larger.

Red, Rock, River by Tania Tanti. She writes: “I dream of flying over the red centre after a torrential rain. An aerial view of where the water wiggles its way around the earth. It feeds the ground and creates growth from the earth.” In her technique section she writes: “Procion dyes, painted, pieced, binding, trapunto, hand-stitched, sit-down free motion quilting.”

She writes: “At then beginning of this year I faced my second battle with breast cancer. As soon as I could I got back into my studio and focused on small achievements each day. This is my Recovery.” And that is the title: Recovery. Technique: Painted, free-motion quilting, hand-quilting.

Tania Tanti is on Instagram, if you’d like to keep up with her.

I looked behind the wall to see this spare room in this church.

Look carefully: a spider! (not our car)

Onward, through the valley.

Venue 11: Église St. Nicolas

Hopefully you can hear the bells. Right after this, we went for a take-out lunch from the local market. The choices were rather cleaned out, but we found something. There were a lot of quilters there — so happy to see this!

I admire and enjoy the art of these churches. The exhibit here was titled Guldisi, which is a hand embroidery program launched in 2004 (quoting from the catalogue), which “now enables 200 women in Afghanistan to support their families….Each piece will include at least one silk embroidery in the shape of a triangle, created by the Afghan Woman.

Ingrid Meier, from Germany. Title: *Aller guten dinge sind drei*, or *All Good Things Come in Threes.*

There were also many embroideries, which I found fascinating, and which included some blackwork/redwork.

These two signs were somewhere on the wall; click to read.

Venue 12: Salle Des Fêtes

We drive to the Salle des Fétes, or the Party Room…and they are having quite the party!

A gathering.

A glimpse of a quilt.

And we meet Jenny Bear! She is a renowned quilter from Australia, known for her scrappy quilts, but exquisitely put together. The catalogue called her “Happily Scrappy” and said that “Jenny’s quilts are a celebration of social history, fabric, color, frugality, and the art of making do. She loves using her stash of antique, vintage and reproduction fabrics as well as rescuing old, unquiltable or broken tops, fragments, orphan blocks and tiny scraps to make something beautiful from them. Her favorite quilts are simple, utilitarian and achievable by anyone who loves to sew.”

She “has been making quilts for more than 40 years….and after her exhibition here, she hopes that her quilt making will return to hobby level and that there may again be time for housework and gardening” (from catalogue).

Everyone was busy, but I loved that quilt on the table.

And on another table, it looked like she was creating something new:

Such a rich tapestry of fabrics and piecing…it just glows.

This was a favorite, but I do love stars.

Simple, yet so powerful in its design.

My orphan quilts never look like this.
This is Sweet Georgia Brown, from 2023. She writes: “Using antique fabrics dating from around 1840 to 1910, this hotchpotch of oddment blocks was inspired by an early twentieth century piece featured in “Unconventional and Unexpected” by Roderick Kiracofe, a book that has inspired many a quilt of mine. Many of the blocks were gifts from friends or purchased from Jane Lury and David Hubert. It is indeed happily scrappy.”

A giant block-swap brought Under the Greenwood Trees to life.

Last one of Jenny’s is Scrappier Bennington Baskets. It is made by Jenny Bear, and quilted by Karen Terrens. The title card says: “This is a scrappier version of Linda Collins’ “Bennington Baskets” featured in her book with Quiltmania “Treasures from the Barn.” The basket block is traditional but the setting is quite quirky, especially with the row of oddment blocks at the top in the original, but at the bottom in my version.” Mixing blocks is a great idea, one to try for sure.

She’s on Instagram if you want to see more.

Right next to Jenny’s was the Kazakhstan quilts, a collection brought to Carrefour by the Kazakhstan Patchwork Association. This was founded in 2013, and has over 180 members “dedicated to promoting and developing ethnic-style patchwork (Kurak) and art quilts. The organize workshops, competitions, and the annual Orient Bazaar Festival.” The catalogue goes on to say that “this exhibition merges historical tradition with modern outlook in Kazakh quilting. At its heart is Tuskiiz-traditional wall coverings reflecting Kazakh nomadic culture.”

How many of us have made house-block quilts? Here’s one, using their traditional home, a yurt. A house quilt, but from a different land.

A quilt we are familiar with, but the motifs are all germane to their culture and country.

Click to enlarge.

Natalya Mametniquazova Tamara Stroscherer (at least I think that’s her name, or their names?) made a series of four garments, titled “Four Seasons Chapan Series” with Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.

A couple more from this country:

There were several artists in this Party Room. We have two more to go, if you are still with me!

Hae Ok Chang, South Korea

Hae Ok Chang, from South Korea, blends Korean and Western influences in a style that ranges from contemporary to traditional. One of her more well-known quilts has snowflakes on a traditional pieced quilt:

Here is another Snowflakes quilt, Snowflakes_04.

She writes: “Hesitating to start a large piece as my strength waned with age, I began a joint work with my daughter. She created the background, I made the snowflakes. Inspired by the night sky over St. John’s Catholic Church, it evokes angel wings and a chorus of family and friends” (from title card).

It is heavily quilted by machine, with hand-embroidered snowflakes.

She also makes more traditional quilts, such as this one, inspired by pear blossoms.

This was inspired by a trip to the Paducah Quilt Show.

Titled Husband, Chang says she “wanted to weave my retired husband’s neckties into a story. Moments of joy and pride as he walked our daughter down the aisle, welcomed a daughter-in-law, celebrated with friends, and shared hardships. Days of work, success, and failure. I keep his devotion, love, hope, and sorrow close to me. Made in 2007.

This quilt was made in 2012, after her husband passed away. Title: Time and Seasons.

She writes: “After my husband passed away in 2012, I couldn’t bring myself to do anything for a while. I had started this quilt earlier, but left it unfinished. Eventually, I returned to it, intensely embroidering each octagonal block with meadows, flowers, birds, animals, wind, and trees. As I followed the seasons, life slowly returned, and I felt grateful to still have work to do.”
Technique: Machine pieced, hand appliquéd, embroidered and quilted.

Title: Wildflowers 01, by Hae Ok Chang
Title Card: “We three sisters spent hours together knitting, sewing, and making clothes. My eldest sister did everything well, the second was precise and skilled, and I, the youngest, just tried my best. As I embroidered this work, I often thought of them and our time together.”

I have three older sisters, so this one was especially meaningful to me, although we don’t sew together.

Title: Serene Glory

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good photo of the title card. You can find her on Instagram, too.

Fiona Lindsay, from Australia

Fiona Lindsay is our last quilt artist for this post, but not the least! as they say. Also showing in Venue 12, her quilts were a veritable flower garden, a theme of hers, chosen carefully, as she loves sewing and she loves gardening.

She was so fun to talk to, and agreed to let me record her talking about her ideas about color and stitching and practice and quilting. It runs about a minute.

Now, for her garden of flowers!

As a reminder, all the quilts are very well lit up, but the shadows can be very strong. I tried to crop them out/edit them out as best as I could.

Those teensy seeds on the blossom, and the wonderful shape and proportions of this quilt: loved it!

(Click to enlarge.)

Those border vines have an energy all their own.

By now you can see that she can put together fabric combinations and colors with such skill, that she makes it look easy. I love the balance of the stems and the shapes of the flowers, too.

One reason why I do these posts from Carrefour is not only to introduce you to new quilting artists, and to let you glimpse the passions from around the world (which Carrefour is so good at bringing together), but also as sort of a reference book for our own designs. Who would have thought to put a Baltimore-style urn of flowers together (above) with a wild vine running free from tiny pots in the corners? Yet it all works with that pieced border and the wild orange Kaffe fabric sashing. Here’s a closer look:

It was great to see a close-up of her work:

Okay back to the quilts.

And now for the favorite from the last post withf Janet O’Dell’s quilts: the antique quilt, but given a Fiona twist:

In pink! With color!

And now I know the maker of that antique quilt: Ann Marker, from nearly 200 years ago. This truly is free and fabulous appliqué — the joy in these shapes just radiates.

Thank you, Fiona, for all your beautiful flower quilts. You can find her on Instagram.
And thank you to all the other quilters and artists.

I know this was a really really long post, but again I hope you’ll treat it like a reference, as well as a delight. I think I have at least one or two more post in me before finishing; it will come soon. Very soon. (Teaser: next up is Racheldaisy, from Australia.)

300 and Beyond · BlockBase+ · eQuilt Universe · Free Download · Quilts · SAHRR 2026 · This-and-That · Tools of the Trade

This and That • February 2026

February 5, 2026February 9, 2026 Elizabeth E.16 Comments

Update on the SAHRR for 2026: The theme for Round Three was “Animal Kingdom,” so I spent a long time scrolling through my BlockBase+ software (really, it’s Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns in digital form–you should have this). I looked at all the names with something from the animal kingdom and found the one in the upper right corner: Bird’s Eye View.

After all that I sewed for last week’s double-double Round Two, I opted for SAHRR Lite. The yellow border is a sketch — to see if I like it. (I do, but I’m waiting to see what the Round Four prompt is.)

Here’s a free handout to make a 5 1/2″ finished Bird’s Eye View block, if you don’t have BlockBase+.

Handout Round 3 block Download

(I don’t have an illustration for you, but if you click on the title: Handout Round 3 block, it should pop up so you can see it. Then click the Download button to download it for free.)

I rough-cut the rays, then seamed them together. Placing the center line on the seamline, I pinned the pattern down and cut around it. I did use a giant plastic circle to help coax that outer seam allowance into place, pressing the seam allowances over it. I hand-appliquéd the circle. And yes, I didn’t end up using this version in the quilt, but instead made another.

Since this is a This and That Post, here’s the first thing for February: glasses. I’m at the three-glasses stage: one for regular walking-around-life, one for the computer (middle), and a new pair of sunglasses (they’ll come with tinted lenses). I only get the sunglasses every few prescription changes, but definitely the clock is not running backwards for my eyes. I had a new optometrist for this exam, with a brand-new machine, and I was totally impressed with her enthusiasm for All Things Eyes.

I updated my Mercantile Links at the bottom of my blog, and included Harts Fabric. They have a super selection of lots of clothing patterns (including Merchant and Mills) and this new feature if you buy fabric: they’ll pick your matching thread. Whoopee! for those of who have no decent fabric stores now that JoAnn’s is gone.

Because of SAHRR, I’m meeting some new bloggers and Ms P Designs is one. I really liked their guidelines for their PHD. You’ll have to read it to know what I mean. I participated in this kind of thing about six years ago and it really helped me clean out the backlog of projects I’d accumulated. I know there are other Linky Parties out there as well. If you are overwhelmed with Projects Half Done, join one. Because of this post, I dusted off my 2026 list:

I picked some that were new, some that are in process, and some that I need to design. One quilt is on the list because this year is the 250th anniversary of our country, and I wanted to think about how to celebrate it. Obviously with some new stamps…

…as I can certainly celebrate 250 years of the Post Office! Number 4 on my list, above, is about making a red, white, and blue flag day quilt and celebrating those things about my country that I love. I’ll be picking and choosing, and writing about them until July 2026. Here’s another set of beautiful stamps, complete with some cloth:

(You already have read about my affinity for stamps. When I travel overseas, I also buy stamps in whatever country I’m in!)

This stumped me this week. I used this (Kona Wasabi) in an earlier completed quilt and I was trying to recreate that quilt. I didn’t have any of that yellowy-green from Kona as I’ve switched to Painter’s Palette Solids.

QUILTY SOLID TO THE RESCUE!!!

Steph Skardahl, a Very Talented Quilter, put this app together and it’s a-may-zing.

So the original query was if Kona Wasabi was similar to Lemon Ice in Paintbrush Studios’ Painter’s Palette Solids:

I was able to compare it in her “Harmonies” section, which gives readouts for Hue, Saturation and Value. Thank you Steph for this really helpful app.

I have an iPhone (Apple) and this is what the landing page looks like in the App Store. So happy to have this and it’s free!

He always makes me laugh.

Another clever crocheter is here. Go read it for the comments. She asks the people responding to speak about current events as if they were talking about crocheting. I think if we all adopted this language we might not be so grumpy with each other so much.

A little HOORAY for this milestone, and yes, it is already on my 2026 Planned Makes list. I actually have made one more, but I don’t count them until I cut out the back and put it in the box. The original post, with free handout and pattern is here.

We are now eating the front yard’s mandarin oranges! It’s so hard to wait every year until February, but it is now, and we are enjoying them.

So why was I on the hunt for something similar to the Wasabi solid? I gave away one of my favorite quilts and was happy to do so, but I missed it. What made it special was the fabric for the borders, an out-of-print Anna Maria Horner (now known as Anna Maria). Gone. But as I was strolling the vendor aisles at Road to California, oh-my-goodness! There was a whole bolt of that fabric!

It was karma, as I already had a stack of AMH/AM at home, so I was good to go. (I will post about Road in the next couple of weeks, never fear.) And now, with a bunch of petals of Lemon Ice cut, within a couple of days, I was cooking:

Hmmm. Missing one.

I finished it just as the sun went down and rushed out to my back patio to try and catch the last few rays of sun.

On the patio. It’s from my pattern Blossom:

(The original quilt, above.) I also want to make a spring version in a smaller size. The pattern has three sizes of this block, with two different borders. It can be found in my pattern shop, and for this February, it is on sale…and without a coupon! It expires at the end of February. Okay, we are almost finished with this post.

Another wonderful quilter, discovered through another online collaboration, Janine of Rainbow Hare made this wonderful combination of wee blocks. She is also in SAHRR. We have a lot of quilty friends out there!

Sometimes I forget to hold space for my quilting, for creativity. I tend to pack things in, rushing from one thing to another. While the thought above relates to how we treat those close to us, I think sometimes giving my creativity a chance without harsh judgement can be a challenge. Sometimes I need to relinquish control and let serendipity find me, as the Queen Anne fabric found me at Road to California, on a day I was just feeling less than subpar, overwhelmed by all the beautiful quilts as well as by the current events in our country. And then, just like that — the spark came, the space opened, and a quilt was made.

Find your people. Find your creative space. Find those quilts that touch your heart —

The schedule:
*January 14: Center Blocks, led by Gail and shared by each co-leader
*January 21: 1st Round: Brenda @ Songbird Designs
*January 28: 2nd Round: Kathleen @ Kathleen McMusing
*February 4: 3rd Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
February 11: 4th Round: Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
February 18: 5th Round: Gail @ Quilting Gail
February 25: 6th Round: Anja @ Anja Quilts
[An asterisk* means I finished that section.]

Digital/Virtual World · eQuilt Universe · New York Beauties · Quilts

This and That • August 2025

August 30, 2025August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

Since today is the 30th, I slid August’s This and That right under the wire.

For those who are new here (and thank you for subscribing) I often do a “This and That” post that contains a lot of small bits, updates on projects and pieces that don’t warrant their own post.

In other news…this is post number 1300. I started writing this blog in January of 2007. Thank you all for reading. And for your comments. And for being a part of my life for many quilty projects!

First up, on America’s Labor Day Weekend (Happy Labor Day, everyone!): a cool and calm photo my husband took near our home. He has a fascination for the flight of herons, and I loved this one, with all its blues.

I made my July block (churn dash, lower left) and August (star), both in this month. I’m using all my collected Sherri & Chelsi fabrics, some from her first lines. Sherri has started putting her quilt together, but I’m not sure how I’ll want to do mine.

I saw this while scrolling through some reels. As she tells it, when you turn 50, you are assigned a hobby.

I am so glad I was assigned Quilting, although I’m getting more and more interested in Geneology. And that group about travel actually sounds sort of interesting.

I went through my house and packed up four boxes of quilt books to send up to the Utah Valley Quilt Guild. My friend Lisa is the Librarian, and she said they’ll keep some and put others up for sale in their fundraiser.

Happy to for them be put to a good use.

And I’ve been putting these up for far too long. With this last one, I am at the end of the quilting on the center. And this is what I’ve sketched out for the borders of this New York Beauties quilt (yellow thread on the yellow border): We’ll see.

I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world that decides to (1) clean out a drawer or (2) lay on the sofa or (3) start a new project or just (4) doomscroll when there is a task awaits that is larger-than-my-tiny-brain-can-handle. After running out of things to procrastinate with, I finally started quilting the border this week. Big sigh, big relief.

The #ScrappyMeetsThriftChallenge soldiers on, with this installment. Or as I call them, my Economy Blocks.

I created a new page dedicated to this quilt so its easier to find the free patterns to make this. You can see “Economy Quilt” in the header, above.

Now here’s a random topic for you. I’ve been reading a lot about AI, and present here some clothing examples of bad photos, with arms that look like they were cut-out paper dolls, weird colors of skin, same model in same pose, clothing that fits oddly around the neckline. This is what they call AI Slop.

“Slop, at least in the fast-moving world of online message boards, is a broad term that [is] in reference to shoddy or unwanted A.I. content in social media, art, books and, increasingly, in search results,” wrote Benjamin Hoffman in a recent article in the New York Times.

While that article focused on searches done on a search engine, I found Kristian Hammond’s comment interesting: “You search for something and you get back what you need in order to think — and it actually encourages you to think. What it’s becoming, in this integration with language models, is something that does not encourage you to think. It encourages you to accept. And that, I think, is dangerous.”

Like we’re supposed to accept that this illustration above is a quilt? Hardly.

When an AI visual-creation platform first landed in 2022, I tried to tell it make a nine-patch block (on the left). That was a joke. I wrote in the email to my friend; “My first one was pretty weird, but I tried to improve my text commands, and the illustrations got a bit better.” My commands are in the text box, above. I tried it again this week, even though I’m sort of basically opposed to the use of AI these days (keep reading). The command was “nine-patch quilt block.” The results:

Nope. Couldn’t find one nine-patch in the mix. This is a serious illustration of AI Slop, which is pretty ubiquitous these days.

Like what is this??? (Also from my “nine-patch” prompt.) Love the “quilting needles.”

According to Natalie Fear, “A Google image search screenshot has ruffled feathers online after it showed more AI-generated results than real-world examples of baby peacocks…[T]he screenshot has sparked mass debate online, with many creatives calling for stricter rules for AI-generated search results to mitigate the spread of misinformation.”

This was published last year, and it’s only gotten worse.

Because of AI slop, I rely less and less on Google search, and type in -ai at the end of my search query quite often. I don’t want to be just “accepting” what is served up to me. And I use DuckDuckGo a lot more now, and even Reddit, as search engines.

Again, use -ai if you want a cleaner search.

Commenters on Reddit had this to say about AI Slop:
1) Slop is just a slur that you say after “AI” to show that you don’t like AI.
2) [Slop] refers specifically to AI generated creations that are clearly low effort engagement-farming spam.
3) Some people call everything that’s AI-generated “AI slop” as an insult, while many other people only use it to describe low effort, low quality content.

And lately, we’ve been hearing more and more and more about the downsides to AI.

Like the energy it consumes (a tongue-in-cheek approach).

Such as what it’s like when a Data Center is built down the road from you.

Like the amount of natural resources it eats up.

Also more on that here.

The problem is that AI, a general term, is integrating itself into our world.

For example:
• I like the clean-up tool on my iPhone photos. Is this AI?
• Doing a search on a search engine. Is this AI? (It is, if you don’t type the three digits -ai after your search terms.)

• Reading on social media and liking that picture of a young woman at a sewing machine. Is this AI? (from here. Be sure to read Weeks and Ringle’s text on this Instagram post.)
I think AI will slide in all around us, whether we are cognizant of it or not, and whether we need it or not. And might make mistakes that could be hard to fix. I love Kyla Scanlon’s recent post about how people feel about AI.

For me, it’s mixed.

Is AI all bad? Perhaps not. Genealogy research is putting it to good use. Here in the quilting world, we already have an “AIQuilter.” I enjoyed reading Sherri’s take on this subject, on her SherriQuiltsALot blog. Julia Wachs, on her website, also does an analysis of a few AI “quilts” and how to avoid purchasing AI-generated quilt patterns, which are sketchy at best in the instructions aspect. But to balance it out, this blogpost goes all in on the AI-design concept.

I just know that when I sit down to design, when I open up my Affinity Designer software, I’m not using 10x energy. Or 10x water.

Finally, Lastly, CanWePleaseStopTalkingAboutThis, my favorite definition of AI’s LLM (Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT) is that it’s “just a bag of words,” so no need to make it your friend, or take it seriously. I’m sure it does have its benefits, which we will discover as time goes on, because whether we like it or not, AI is here to stay.

When my brain is futzed out from all of this, I return to earth, to retreat to the fascinating brilliance of this real world. I return to the human level of making. Like quilts.

Or like a dress, or something. My sister’s been hot on this clothes-making for some time (inspiring me) and you know I’ve been sewing, too. But now I have a couple more pieces of fabric and want to make something else. Oh, what to choose? Hart’s Fabric has an extensive pattern collection, as does Oak Fabrics in Chicago (plus they both have fabric). Another place for both fabrics and patterns is Harmony, a fun shop in Provo, Utah.

Or a piece of writing for the Carrefour Quilt Show? It is being held next month in the Alsace region of France. This year is their 30th Anniversary, and since I’d written about it here in this space, they contacted me to see if I’d like to write something for them. I would! and I did. You can find the first post on their blog.

It’s in English, as well as French and German.

Maybe I’ll see you there?

In the meantime, I’ve got a border to sew, squircles to prep, and everything in between. And I’m not using AI for any of it.

Happy sewing!

NOTE: None of the illustrations or photographs you’ll find on this blog are AI, UNLESS I LABEL THEM AS SUCH (like the silly raccoon, above). None of my quilt designs or patterns are AI, either. It’s all home-grown, here!

eQuilt Universe · Museums

Bisa Butler • World of Color and Artistry

May 23, 2021October 20, 2025 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

Bisa Butler, *The Safety Patrol* (2018) Cavigga Family Trust Fund (© Bisa Butler)

Bisa Butler recently mounted her first museum exhibition at the Art Institure of Chicago and “surmounted biases in the contemporary art world against both people of color and fiber arts” as Deborah Brehmer puts it in an article in Hyperallergic. This recent article was sent to my by my artist sister, Christine Petty, a screenprinter, who, when her studio was shut down, made her way through the pandemic by learning the art of natural dying, and diving into the world of seeds, flowers and yards of softly hued cloth. My sister and I talk art, the drive to make art, and color. I’ve been sent links to Butler’s art from several sources, but the link from my sister sent me to the blog so I could share it all with you.

detail of Bisa Butler’s *The Safety Patrol* (2018) Cavigga Family Trust Fund (© Bisa Butler)

I created The Safety Patrol while in my last year of teaching high school and simultaneously preparing to debut my artwork with the Claire Oliver Gallery. I was constantly thinking about my career change and at the same time having strong feelings about my students. It was during this time that Trayvon Martin was killed while walking home from the store by a vigilante. Trayvon’s killer had just been acquitted under the Stand Your Ground law in Florida, and I was distraught. I couldn’t reconcile my emotions about the future well-being of my children and my students in a society where their lives are expendable.
To keep reading, artist’s statement is from here

Many quilters use color in their work. But Bisa Butler’s floating figures are drenched in color, not only from multiple layers of fabrics, but also by the use type of fabric: African Dutch Wax prints, which bring not only color, but texture. She artfully cuts and combines her fabrics and includes bits such as the key around the young girl’s neck and the patrol boy’s belt made of carefully fussy-cut kente cloth.

*I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings*, 2019
Minneapolis Institute of Art; Promised gift on long-term loan from a private collection. Photo by Margaret Fox. © Bisa Butler

The skirt on the left: earrings, and the skirt on the right: high heels, chosen by Butler in honor of Michelle Obama’s trip to Ghana.

Bisa Butler, The Storm, The Whirlwind, and The Earthquake, a portrait of Frederick Douglass, from here

In this article in Juxtapoz Magazine (another article worth reading), her migration to cloth from paint is described:

“as an art student at Howard University, she began using fabric to avoid paint, which made her nauseous while pregnant. But she realized something deeper was at play, her actual dissonance with paint. “I could follow the rules technically but I didn’t have the voice. The paint didn’t connect to me.” Butler was introduced to textiles by her mother and grandmother, both dressmakers, who taught her how to make her own clothes. “Fabric was of my family, so using kente related to my heritage. When I made the portrait of my grandfather whom I’d never met, I realized I needed to use all African fabrics, and I used my grandmother’s fabrics that were old because I wanted to assert that this man lived before,” she said.

Reading the Juxtapoz article, I was fascinated by the history and meanings of the Dutch Wax prints and kente cloth, especially the names given to the pieces in Douglas’ portrait, or those in the I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, above.

In the Hyperallergic Magazine article, Brehmer notices some women who gather around one of the quilts:

“I watched a group of three white women take in a piece called “Survivor” (2018), which addresses female genital mutilation. They discussed the technical aspects of quilting. One explained what a “long-arm” sewing machine is. They shared observations regarding the meandering lines of stitching and the way Butler layers transparent lace, silk, and tulle over opaque fabrics to create depth and shadows. They were in awe of the technical mastery of the work.”

Brehmer has noticed how we quilters often interact with many quilts as we notice the technical aspects: “How did she quilt this?” “Is there a pattern?” “Where can I buy that fabric?” I’ve seen it happen at quilt shows and so have you, when we get so involved with “how did the quilter make this” that we forget to notice (in Butler’s case) the joy, the history, the placing of historical figures in our time, asking us to put human lives and needs and challenges at the center of of our gaze. We want to own or borrow that particular quilt artist’s approach and those questions come from that impulse, I’m convinced. While my quilts will never be on par with Butler’s, and my subject matter is — oh, so different — I can learn from how she comes to the work. I can learn to let art climb in and infuse the making with joy and meaning, and yes, with color.

On the Art Institute site, in a short video interview with Butler, we see her studio, get a sense of how she works, and listen to talk about her education and guiding principles in her art. I pulled the images above from that video, and loved the two above of her obvious delight in seeing this exhibit of quilts, of textiles, of history, of her vision in such a storied place as the Art Institute. I think we are all familiar with the Gee’s Bend and Amish quilts, both earlier exhibits in major national museums. I view this exhibit as another break-through show, intended to showcase the art and craft of quilts.

Happy Quilting!