In this new showcase I’m featuring four Modern Quilters that you will love!
Annabelle Felix
my name is Annabelle Félix, I am French and I am a textile designer by training.
I studied in Paris at the LISAA school. I am passionate about the know-how that affects crafts. I have a strong predilection for textile manipulation and embroidery. I love exploring materials and trying to create something new. As I did not learn embroidery academically, I tend to bend the rules a bit in my way of doing it, but paradoxically I also like the challenge of mastered and technically demanding work. I like the idea that the result of what I propose can be a bit strange and subtle at the same time. What matters most to me is to try to bring out a sensitivity and a uniqueness from my work.
The emergence of new ideas goes a lot for me through iconographic research. As you can discover on my Pinterest, I have quite different inspirations. I can like organic things, just as I can like very structured and geometric things. For a long time, Art Nouveau inspired me a lot. Currently it is mainly minerals that inspire me. I am also very sensitive to colors. I like sheer whites, opalescent frost colors and neon touches. I also like black and like to use it by playing on gloss and matte.
The materials I use most often are: silk, lace, plastics that I divert from their original use, freshwater pearls, purl, semi-precious stones, sequins, glass beads, silk thread, lurex threads and sometimes leather.
In the world of fashion, my attraction goes to designers like Iris Van Herpen, Alexander Mc Queen and Yiqing Yin. In recent years I have also adored the Givenchy haute couture collections by Ricardo Tisci, which I believe have influenced me the most. I also loved the Dior haute couture collection offered by Raf Simons. I also really like the pleated dresses by Madame Grés which I find very modern.
Heather Stoltz
Sewing Stories is not just the name of my art business; it is also the mission of my work. I transform abstract and challenging issues like homelessness, climate change, school shootings, immigration, and women’s rights into fiber art wall hangings and sculptures. I also create pieces expressing the conflicted feelings that parents often experience as they guide their children through the early years of life. My pieces are created from hand-painted and commercial fabrics and are mostly machine stitched. Three-dimensional pieces also utilize wire fencing and other elements both as a structural element as well as to advance the narrative.
Purple figures are often found in my work in order to help tell the stories. By using purple for all the people in my work, viewers can imagine themselves into the stories without being distracted by skin tone or political viewpoints. Currently, I am working on a series that depicts women’s experiences during the pandemic.
I took a strange winding path to fiber art, starting with a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Jewish Studies. While I was working as an engineer, my mother’s friend taught the two of us to quilt and we made our first quilt together. After two years as an engineer, I realized that wasn’t the right path for me and started a Master’s degree in Jewish Studies. There, I had a professor, Dr. Anne Lapidus Lerner, who encouraged creative approaches to our studies and so I made my first art quilts as a project for her class about Creation and Eve. As my advisor, she oversaw my master’s thesis, which also took the form of a quilted wall hanging. I was addicted and I’ve been making fiber art ever since!
Kathy Anso
I’ve been quilting 20 years. My quilt training has been 10 years of workshops with Nancy Crow.
Through these I’ve learnt about value, contrast, repetition and piecing, exactly the skills needed to turn any idea into a quilt. My quilts are fully machine pieced and quilted, made of cotton with polyester batting and fleece backing. This way they can bear years of washing as they’re art made to be used.
My inspiration comes usually from something I drive past. That barn or animal or tree makes me think of a story I can tell. I deliberately use false colour and naïve blocky shapes to make the picture more abstract. I want the recipient to search for meaning, not to thinking they have received a simple landscape. Quite differently to many artists, as I have a specific story in mind I want to communicate it clearly, not for the viewer to decide how they interpret my image. That’s 250 rug or bed-sized quilts given over 20 years to encourage family, friends or acquaintances especially during hard times, challenges or changes in their lives.
Felice Dahlhausen
After thirty-two years as a high school art teacher I retired and moved into a new
artistic path. I have always quilted but now explore possibilities with fabric and thread
creating art quilts instead of bed quilts. I received my BFA at Kent State University in Ohio and loved exposing my students to varied art experiences and career options. As a teacher I taught drawing, painting, photography and graphic design. At retirement I made the decision to devote my time learning and creating in fibre art.
I grew up with a grandmother and mother who sewed clothing and could put together an
outfit in no time at all. My father was in the textile business in Manhattan and I would sometimes go into the city with him on Saturdays to help out at his business. Fabric has
always been a part of my life.
Felted wool combined with cotton fabrics and embroidery stitches are my chosen
materials. My goal is to strengthen my artistic work and learn new techniques that will
provide growth in the skills I use. I have recently explored Indigo Shibori and printed
dyeing techniques and have included those fabrics in current work. I enjoy hand appliqué as well as pieced work but always include added stitches for texture and pattern. I use Apliquick© tools to form the shapes I will appliqué.
I love sharing the processes with others and enjoy that as much as creating the works. I have created patterns for others to use but also welcome opportunities to teach techniques with student design driven compositions.
Nature is my main inspiration however, I have started to venture into abstract pieces. I
live in NE Ohio and enjoy hikes in our parks as well as taking in the insect and plant life
at our pond and perennial garden. Travel always provides new possibilities.
Participating in an art quilt group has been wonderful for constructive criticism and building friendships. I highly recommend it!
All colors are intriguing to me. I spend a great amount of time planning the colors to use
in my pieces. I tend to be louder with color, then quieter, but have created with a monochromatic color scheme using texture and shape to define the subject matter as well.