Vertical Quilting Curve

Ok, I came up with this on a whim and I’m sure lots of other folks have the same exact feature but I’m new here and since I can’t sew everyday I can at least talk about the lucky people who get to do what they love for a living. I’ve chosen Nancy Crow this week because she was one of the first quilt artists I heard of who actually was considered a “real” artist while being a quilter. She was the first contemporary quilter to be exhibited in the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. And I’ve met her and seen her quilts up close and personal although it has been several years. She made me think I could actually be an artist with fabric.

I love what she says in her artist statement about her art:

I identify who I am with my art work…in other words, I love the work, the experience of making each quilt. It’s my life, my life’s work! I feel lost not doing art, unsatisfied, anxious, bored.

I don’t know about you but that last sentence of feeling lost and unsatisfied when not doing what you love really hit home. I left a retail job many years ago and went to work for Leisure Arts and my husband commented that I was a different (luckily better) person than in my other job. Unfortunately, I had to leave that job for my husband’s job but it still gave me a lot of gifts knowing what I really like to do and look here I am!

One of the other cool things she has that I’m jealous of is her workshop/studio. It is a huge barn on a farm in Baltimore, OH, not far from where I grew up. Back then she didn’t have the studio there and I didn’t have the quilting bug quite yet but one of these days I’m going to take a class with her in that barn. She does several classes a year there and they always fill up with people from around the world.

If you have not heard of Nancy you should check out her website. She has a new book cataloguing her quilts through 2005 and you can find her quilts in several art museums. She also designs a fabric line availble in many fine quilt stores which she lists on her site.

Thanks for reading my first installation of the designer of the week. Hopefully I will be able to actually interview some of them in the future. If you would like to see someone profiled please feel free to leave a comment. I would love to hear from you.