Exploring Your Artistic Voice in Contemporary Quilt Art by Sandra Sider

"How do I develop my artistic voice, and what exactly is that?" is the second most asked question in Sandra Sider's art quilt critique workshops. Inspired by the closing statement in Michelle Obama's memoir Becoming, "there's power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice," Sider was motivated to take the risk of sharing her quilts and journey as an artist in the public platform of a book. 

Stir Crazy by Sandra Sider, 60 x 42 in. Cyanotype photograms, paint on cotton

Sider begins with childhood memories of quiltmaking in her family and her early traditional quilts. In the 70s she saw quilt exhibitions that included "outsider art" that broadened her view of quiltmaking. A friend who wanted to learn to make quilts combined cyanotype images on fabric for quilts and this technique spoke to Sider and started her on her art quilt journey.

Sider shares the quilts she made over her career, explaining her growth in technique and artistic eye. She was not interested in traditional "pretty" quilts, but art that evoked a response.

Stem Cells by Sandra Sider

Sider shares what she has learned.

"Artistic voice" is not a goal, but a process, Sider writes. We sometimes get lost in the process or making a piece. We are warned to keep the purpose of your art piece in mind. Editing is important; too much machine quilting can obscure, fabric color choices may not match the message, over embellishing can create confusion.

Art education is ongoing for the artist, always trying new techniques and materials. Viewing art exhibitions can lead to new insights and inspiration. Draw from everything in your life. Keep a notebook of ideas, listen to critiques. Self-promotion is a part of a quilt artist's success.

Road Rage, digitally manipulated images of a Utah License plate,
was inspired by a solo cross-country drive

Sider's book will inspire quilt artists in their journey. Her ability to self-critique makes her a sympathetic and approachable teacher.

I was given access to a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Chapters:

• How Many Things Do You Know?
• How Many Things Can You Do?
• Does Your Art Education Ever End?
• You Call Yourself an Artist
• Why Critiques Can Be Helpful
• Using Your Voice

Read Sider's bio here.

Read an interview with Sider at Create Whimsy here.

Images are from the author's website.

Exploring Your Artistic Voice in Contemporary Quilt Art
by Sandra Sider
Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
Pub Date 28 Jan 2020
112 pages 60 color images
ISBN: 9780764358876
$16.99 (USD) paperback

from the publisher:This compact guide will make a huge impact on how you choose to express yourself in quilt art. Think of the artists whose work you admire, individuals with a distinctive style or perhaps several styles developed over the years. You might like their use of color, materials, craft expertise, and subject matter. But above all, you recognize in these makers an authenticity, a confident approach to the quilt medium. That is their artistic voice. Develop your own unique artistic voice, see your work mature, and become confident and happy with what you are doing in the studio. Renowned quilt artist Sandra Sider acts as a companion along the path to discovering your voice, and offers photos of dozens of her own quilt design successes and failures as examples to learn from. Even blind alleys, detours, and the road not taken can lead to developing one’s voice as a quilt artist—indeed, as any sort of creative maker. Topics include how to write a powerful artist's statement for yourself, when to stop experimenting, and using your voice once you own it. Looking to broaden your quilting experience, or simply curious about the concept of an artistic voice? Look no further—this is the perfect guide for you!

Why We Quilt: Contemporary Makers Speak Out about the Power of Art, Activism, Community, and Creativity by Thomas Knauer

When a stranger learns that I make quilts I am told stories about grandmothers who made quilts. You can see in their eyes the warm memories they hold dear of sleeping under grandma's quilt, or draping a quilt over a table to build a sleeping tent, or carrying it to some shady park for a picnic. Quilts are made to be used. And they are often used up, like the one my mother-in-law gifted us in the 1980s, sun-bleached with one fabric completely decayed.

Some quilts are so precious they are folded away and stored in a closet or a cedar chest.

Dresden Plate made by Carrie Bobb, my great-aunt

Single Wedding Ring made by Harriet Scoville Nelson,
my husband's great-great-grandmother, stored in a cedar chest

Every quilt is also the product of its creator's love of beauty and design, a tactile work of art, the quilter selecting colors and prints and designs.

Never used quilt purchased at a flea market
made by a Detroit quiltmaker

Quilts can be born out of frugality, using up and preserving, fabrics, like the first quilt my mother-in-law made for my husband to take to college using fabric scraps from curtains and pajamas and clothing she had made. Quilts are no longer items of necessity as during the Depression, a need to repurpose precious fabrics for warmth. But we love fabrics that come with a memory.

Scrap quilt made by my mother-in-law for my husband

Family photo quilt I made for my father

My third quilt was made for my son

Quilts symbolize values held by the maker, from love of family to love of country, from a symbol of healing to a symbol of protest. They represent a choice for the hand-made and the unique over the impersonal and factory manufactured.

With my quilt, I Will Lift My Voice Like a Trumpet, featuring women
Abolitionists and Civil Rights leaders, at 2013 AQS Grand Rapids, MI

Quilts tell a story. Quilts can change our perception. Quilts are comfort. Quilts connect us with each other even when separated by time and space.

My latest quilt The Bronte Sisters uses Jane Sassaman fabrics
From my series of quilts celebrating literature

Quilts are created for joy, and for protest. They are vehicles for self-expression, sharing what we love and what we fear. Quilts are personal and they are communal. They are to be used today and to be preserved for future generations.

No one description can explain a quilt.

detail of a quilt from Detroit, MI found at a flea market

*****

Thomas Knauer grew up in Amish country, an area associated with quilting, but his first personal encounter with quilts was the AIDS Memorial Quilt, opening his eyes to the many uses quilting can assume. A contract to design quilting fabric finally led him to make his first quilt. Knauer learned first hand of the power of quilts when he gave that quilt to his daughter, whose reaction of excitement and love impelled him to make more quilts.

Knauer's protest quilts make us uncomfortable. Like the Trayvon Martin quilt based on a shooting target, Tea and Skittles and the Sunbonnet Sues carting AK-47s in One Child is too Many. I personally respond to quilts of protest as much as respond to antique quilts or contemporary quilts made to be used.

from Playing With a Purpose by Victoria Findlay Wolfe
my review here

Why We Quilt addresses the many motivations behind creativity in the quilt world. Artist Statements are illustrated with photographs of the quilter's work.  Voice of Quilting offers insights into the most important quilters of today, from traditionalists to innovative art quilters, including Denyse Schmidt, Joe Cunningham, Victoria Findlay Wolfe, Lynette Anderson, Mary Fons and Marianne Fons, and Chawne Kimber. Each chapter includes Quilting Vocab Explained, clarifying quilt concepts discussed in the chapter.

Knauer writes with love and emotion of the history of quilting, sharing antique and contemporary quilt photographs.

Joe Cunningham at CAMEO Quilt Guild 

Each chapter offers a deeper look into the reasons why we quilt:

• We Quilt to Connect with a Rich Tradition: The roots of American quilting
• We Quilt to Explore and Express our Creativity: The maturation of quilting
• We Quilt to Move Beyond Modern Consumer Culture: The Introduction of Standardization
• We Quilt to Create a Connection with Loved Ones: Other voices in American quilting
• We Quilt to Change the World: The role of signature quilts in reform movements
• We Quilt Because We Can--and Because We Cannot Help but Do So: The American Bicentennial and Quilting's great revival

Why We Quilt is a beautiful book. There is a wonderful diversity and range of quilts and quilters. Quiltmakers will find kindred spirits. As a quiltmaker who loves both traditional and antique quilts and contemporary quilts, especially those that address contemporary issues of justice, I found much to enjoy. Each time I open the book I find something to inspire.

In the end, what draws me to quilts--and indeed what I think makes them relevant in the twenty-first century--is the sense that quilts are an archaic item that's no longer materially necessary. Today quilting is neither an expected practice nor a basic practicality; it is a conspicuous choice. Quilts are not about material need but instead fulfill other needs, personal needs that are unique to each quilter. For me quilts offer a vehicle for protest, a means for venting my outrage. For others they offer a step away from the same world my quilts comment upon. Either way, I think quilts remain relevant and will continue to do so, precisely because we do not need them but rather want them. ~ from Why We Quilt by Thomas Knauer

I received access to a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Find Thomas Knauer's blog here
Learn more about Knauer's career at Thomas Knauer 
Read about Knauer's previous book The Quilt Design Coloring Book here

Why We Quilt
by Thomas Knauer
Storey Publishing
October 15, 2019
Price: $29.95 Hardback
ISBN: 9781635860337

Playing With Purpose: A Quilt Retrospective by Victoria Findlay Wolfe

I Am Not Perfect And That is OK is the title of a quilt by Victoria Findlay Wolfe. In her new book Playing With Purpose one of her first messages is that creativity and improvisation in art entails making mistakes. It is part of the process and one should not be dejected when things go awry. 

Give yourself permission, she advises, to let your work evolve and change. Allowing your work to evolve organically means letting go of set expectations. 

It is OK to set aside a project until you have a clear vision or new skill set to complete it. But don't expect to reach some fantasy of perfection. Worrying about perfection brings negativity and failure.  

Your work should bring joy. Creating a quilt should be playful. Don't overthink it.

We worry too much about color matching and using a limited fabric palette. Wolfe's work breaks out of such self-imposed limitations. Forget the 'rules'. There are no rules. There is what works, what tells your story.

 Few quilt artists are as creative with preprinted fabrics as Wolfe.

Learn new skills, Wolfe encourages. Break out of your comfort zone. As an artist, Wolfe is always evolving.

Tell the quilt police (in your head and outside) where to go. It's your fabric, your time, your memories, your joy. Just make!~from Playing with Purpose by Victoria Findlay Wolfe

 It is wonderful to study Wolfe's quilts presented in the book.

Learn more about Wolfe on her website

https://vfwquilts.com/

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Victoria Findlay Wolfe’s Playing with Purpose: A Quilt Retrospective

Victoria Findlay Wolfe 

Stash Books

 Book ( $39.95  )

 eBook ( $31.99 )  

ISBN: 978-1-61745-828-6

UPC: 734817-113478

(eISBN: 978-1-61745-829-3)