As part of this month’s Textile Museum of Canada Digital Residency, we’re profiling a number of artists and professionals associated with the museum and wider community. See all of the profiles here.
What’s your connection to the Textile Museum?
I am the curator of an upcoming exhibition there titled Color Improvisations 2.
What do you do in your industry?
I am an artist who makes quilts. I have a large studio on my 100-acre farm in central Ohio. I also have a large teaching facility on my farm that I open twice a year for four weeks in the spring and for four weeks in the fall. Students come from all over the world to study at my farm. There are four faculty members each session. As one of the faculty, I am possibly the only person world-wide teaching classical figure/ground composition to very eager women and men who aspire to be excellent quilt makers and in particular machine-piecers.
In your opinion, how can textiles tell stories?
Textiles can tell stories simply by their beauty. By their complexity. By their simplicity. There are so many, many techniques – hundreds – associated with textiles, so whether they tell stories will be totally dependent on the maker … and whether the maker is a storyteller. The answer to your question is a book.
What’s your favourite place in Toronto to do some creative thinking?
I do not know Toronto. But I would love to spend time seeing all of its attributes.
So much of our attention is drawn to the digital and virtual possibilities of art. Can you explain what role textiles play in your day-to-day life?
I am a person who chooses not to spend much of my time on digital processes. But rather I choose to spend my time being in the moment in my studio working from 8 am to 9 pm most days. I am too aware of time running out and I want my attention focused on creating the best work I can before I die. What I create has nothing to do with the digital world. It has to do with my own incredible bank of imagery, ideas, visions that nearly drown me sometimes with excitement.
Name one artist of any discipline and any era who never ceases to inspire you.
Van Gogh. Why? Because I am astounded by his acute observations of nature and Japanese prints, which he absorbed and incorporated into his own work. One can see these influences changing his work as he rapidly knocks out painting after painting. These influences propelled him on to the next level and then on to the next, from his early work on to his later work. And because he was such a driven artist he made these influences his own in such an original way. He is also one of our greatest colourists. And I am a colourist. Yes, it is Van Gogh for me.
Visit the NOW Digital Residency: Textile Museum of Canada
