What is Art Quilting?

Quilt art, sometimes known as art quilting, is an art form that uses traditional quilting techniques to create art objects. Practitioners of quilt art create it based on their experiences, imagery, and ideas rather than traditional patterns. Quilt art generally has more in common with the fine arts than it does with traditional quilting. These forms of art generally adorn walls.

A quilted work of art consists of two layers of cloth held together by stitching. A middle batting layer made of polyester, cotton or even silk is also incorporated.

Although quilted art originated in traditional quilting techniques, quilt artists now may use many different processes to create their artwork, including painting, dyeing, stamping, piecing, collage, printing (often incorporating a photograph printed onto fabric), applique, and other complex cloth processes.

Check out the art quilt above this post!  Isn’t it a beauty?   This is part of a recent collection at Morris museum.

The exhibit is a testament to the collector, John M. Walsh III of Martinsville, who has a passion for quilts and a keen eye for picking the best. “Today he is recognized as a major collector of art quilts,” said Linda Moore, the Museum’s chief operating officer. Walsh’s interest was stimulated when he attended a quilt conference in Louisville, Ky., in 1992, where he met one of the speakers, quilt expert Penny McMorris. Walsh was captivated by these innovative art quilts and vowed to start a collection of his own. With the help of McMorris, who agreed to work with him as curator of his new collection, he has amassed a collection of more than 80 quilts, whose subject matter ranges from nature and landscape to narrative and abstract art.

Being brought up near the shores, water has been close to his heart as is evident from his words here – “We not only seek out the best of the best, we try to help artists financially by commissioning special works from them, so that they will not feel bound by commercial issues, but will feel free to follow their own visions. My only prerequisite for commissioned pieces is that they have something to do with water,” said Walsh in a recent telephone interview.

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