Art Quilt Portfolio: The Natural World

I was the lucky recipient of a copy of Art Quilt Portfolio: The Natural World, by Martha Sielman (Lark Books publishing). I was especially interested, because I’m going to be in the People and Portraits volume next year, so it was a joy to see how beautiful the book is: nice paper, good-sized pictures, lots of color, but enough writing to keep me interested. I’m into these books for the pictures, sure, but I love to read how artists think and work, and this book provides plenty of that.

There are 19 artists and 1 fiber art group profiled in the book, and a myriad of other artists who have one or two quilts in themed sections such as Animals or Leaves. Of course, my brain tries to play this out into the People and Portraits book and gets Men and Women and Children and Aliens (not the illegal kind, but the Area 51 kind) and Naked People as themed sections (guess where I go?)…but I’m sure they’ll be much more intelligent than that.

These themed sections mean we get to see a wide variety of nature-themed quilts beyond the artist profiles, which is a nice addition to the book. It’s not limited to just those artists, and there are some in the themed sections that surprised me…I did not know that Leslie Gabrielse had ever made a nature quilt…and it was quite a beautiful tree.

Having been through the interview process with Sielman, she does a good job of keeping the artist’s tone in their section. Also, there were artists I was not familiar with, like Ginny Smith and Cassandra Williams (although I recognized the giraffe quilt), and some favorites of mine, like Betty Busby and Annemieke Mein. While I love to see my old favorites, I also enjoy learning about new artists (this is why my blog list on Google Reader is so huge). Smith has some primitive-looking, yet brightly colored crows who are calling my name (not literally) and Williams’ Dance of the Deep, a quilt with a stunning octopus, impresses me with her realism on the face of traditional diamond piecing. I remember my mom showing me a book of Mein’s work many years ago…I’m as impressed with it now as I was then. And you’ve heard me go on about Busby before.

One of the parts I love about this book is that the artist seems to be talking directly to you. In Judith Trager’s section, she tells the reader to keep working: “Don’t ever stop working. Whatever your circumstances are, don’t ever stop making art…It is important to keep doing it, because it keeps you alive.” Hello sister! I’m trying. But yeah. I’m with you on that. We learn about their background, their choice to work in fiber, where they live as a connection to why they make nature-related art, and how they work on specific pieces. This adds to the worth of this volume. I’ve reviewed art quilt books before, and I am frustrated when it is all pictures and no story. I want to delve deep into the artist’s brain and figure out why they do what they do and what it means to them. This book provides all that.

I’m looking forward to reading through this book on the way to some soccer tournament (cough cough tomorrow!). I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys artists talking about their work, or those who like quilts of flowers and birds and trees and insects, because there are plenty of those to make you happy…definitely worth a purchase (it was on my wish list…so I guess I’m lucky it didn’t show up for my birthday).