Therese May

Last updated

Therese May (born 1943 in Madison, Wisconsin) is an American artist who was an early participants in the art quilt movement that began in the 1960s. She is known for her mixed media quilts and is featured in several contemporary quilting histories.

Contents

Early life and education

May was born August 5, 1943, in Madison, Wisconsin. She began to self-identify as an artist while in kindergarten. [1] She studied painting at the University of Wisconsin, earning a bachelor's degree in Art in 1967. In 1974 she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from San Jose State University. [2] She continued to live in San Jose throughout the 1980s. [3]

Early career

May began to piece quilts in the late 1960s. Initially, her quilts were made of squares and triangles. However, she soon developed a method which involved projecting a photographic slide on to paper and then tracing the image. [4] The drawing was then cut out and used as a pattern for fabric. [5] May entered a quilt that was made using this method (Therese Quilt) in a mixed craft media exhibition at the Walnut Creek Civic Art Center in 1969: Animals, Quilts, and Blunt Instruments. [6] She won a prize and realized that a career as a fiber artist was possible. [7]

Jean Ray Laury, who is "regarded by many as the leading voice in the early sixties quilt revival," [8] saw Therese Quilt and included it in her book, Quilts and Coverlets: A Contemporary Approach (1970). [9] Quilts and Coverlets is considered to be the first major book on contemporary quiltmaking, [10] and it became widely influential among fiber artists. [11] Inclusion in this book launched May's career. [12]

Therese Quilt (1969) features an image of May's face that was reproduced eighty times and traced onto eighty different fabrics. Each tracing was then cut identically into pieces and reassembled like a miniature jigsaw puzzle so that each portrait is composed of different fabrics and no two blocks are the same. The portraits were then machine appliquéd to a backing fabric. [13] The fabrics, which were obtained from used clothing that was purchased in thrift shops, [14] "zing and clash, rather than coordinate." [15] In describing the quilt, Laury wrote, "The pattern of hexagonal shapes is so reminiscent of old quilts that it is a delightful jolt to have the faces emerge from the pattern." [16] May stated that these self-portraits reflect human nature in that, "We are the same person and yet we are never the same. With each passing hour we are slightly different." [17] Therese Quilt was later selected as one of the "Twentieth Century's Best American Quilts" by a panel that included representatives of The Alliance for American Quilts, The American Quilt Study Group, The International Quilt Association, International Quilt Festival, and PRIMEDIA Special Interest Publications. [18]

Bridget Quilt (1968) was also included in Quilts and Coverlets. It, too, featured a repeated image, with each repetition composed of different fabrics. Laury described it as combining "the elements of a traditional quilt with the photographic image approach of contemporary painting." [19]

During the 1970s, "May's subject matter focused on domestic scenes, her children, and her collection of salt and pepper shakers." [20] She also incorporated patterns from Early American hooked and braided rugs in her paintings, drawings, and quilts. [21]

Later career

In 1977, May began drawing and painting fantasy animals. [22] These images began to appear in her quilts in 1981. [23] She was inspired by artists such as Joan Brown, Roy De Forest, and David Gilhooly. [24] Around 1980 she began painting directly on her quilts, [25] creating "thick, often crusty, surfaces of layered color and texture." [26] May enjoys the risk of adding paint, stating, "Adding paint can either make or break the work. You can lose a lot of time if the paint you add doesn't work." [27] In addition to paint, she often embellishes her quilts with embroidery [28] and will intentionally leave some or all of the threads dangling to "add another layer of texture, color, and tactile interest" to the quilt's surface. [29] She often adds buttons and beads. [30] May states that, "An embellished quilt has the feeling of a collection." [31] Her work has influenced the use of embellishment in quilts, [32] which she encourages in the workshops that she teaches. [33]

An installation view of the 2009 exhibition at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum, Lincoln, Nebraska, featuring the 1985 art quilt "Sawblade" (left) by Therese May. Installation view of exhibition Perspectives - Art, Craft. Design and the Studio Quilt.jpg
An installation view of the 2009 exhibition at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum, Lincoln, Nebraska, featuring the 1985 art quilt "Sawblade" (left) by Therese May.

May continued to exhibit regularly, sell her work, and teach, [34] and by the late 1980s she was working full-time as a professional artist. [35] Two of her pieces, Thy Will Be Done (1985) and For All The World To See (1984), were included in The Art Quilt, [36] an exhibition featuring the work of non-traditional quilters which opened at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in 1986, and then traveled to seven other sites over a three-year period. Robert Shaw wrote, "As the first major curated exhibit of its kind, The Art Quilt defined the cutting edge of the new movement and identified its leading practitioners." [37] During this period May also created Fish and Chicks (1986), a "personal visual narrative" that is full of symbolism. [38]

One of May's later works is Pregnant Winter Tree (1993), a machine appliquéd piece which is also painted, beaded, and further embellished with buttons. Robert Shaw describes it as "dreamlike and open to interpretation." [39] Referring to it, May noted, "Much of the time there is so much more to the world than is apparent. In the creative process sometimes we think nothing is happening, but actually lots is happening. When things don't seem to be growing, they really are." [40]

May's other later works include Cup-O-Wurms (1995) [41] and a piece commissioned for the San Jose Convention Center in 1993. [42] In 1997, Robert Shaw described her as "one of the most visible and highly regarded quilt artists for many years." [43]

Notes

  1. ↑ Bavor 2012, p. 19
  2. ↑ Bavor 2011, p. 86
  3. ↑ Import, N. C. S. (June 3, 2013) [June 3, 2013]. "Quilt artist Sandra Bruce finds inspiration in thread-based medium". The Union. Archived from the original on September 12, 2024. Retrieved September 12, 2024.
  4. ↑ Ramsey 1999, p. 14
  5. ↑ Shaw 1997, p. 51
  6. ↑ Bavor 2012, p. 28
  7. ↑ Ramsey 1999, p. 14
  8. ↑ McMorris; Kile 1986, p. 43
  9. ↑ Bavor 2012, p. 28.
  10. ↑ Ramsey 1999, p. 12
  11. ↑ Sider 2010, pp. 56–57
  12. ↑ Shaw 1987, p. 51
  13. ↑ Shaw 1987, p. 53.
  14. ↑ Sider 2010, p. 58
  15. ↑ McMorris 1999, p. 96
  16. ↑ Laury 1970, p. 64.
  17. ↑ Ramsey 1999, p. 14
  18. ↑ Lehman 1999, pp. 4–5
  19. ↑ Laury 1970, p. 64
  20. ↑ Bavor 2011, p. 86
  21. ↑ Sider 2010, p. 90
  22. ↑ Bavor 2011, p. 86
  23. ↑ Shaw, 1987, p. 216
  24. ↑ Bavor 2011, p. 86
  25. ↑ Sider 2010, p. 90
  26. ↑ McMorris; Kile 1986, p. 65
  27. ↑ McMorris; Kile 1986, p. 66
  28. ↑ Shaw 1987, p. 131
  29. ↑ Shaw 1987, p. 129
  30. ↑ Bavor 2011, p. 87
  31. ↑ Shaw 1987, p. 217
  32. ↑ McMorris 1999, p. 96
  33. ↑ Bavor 2012, p. 27
  34. ↑ Bavor 2012. pp. 25, 27–29
  35. ↑ Bavor 2012, p. 29
  36. ↑ McMorris; Kile 1986, p. 124
  37. ↑ Shaw 1987, pp. 64–45
  38. ↑ Bavor 2011, pp. 88–89
  39. ↑ Shaw 1987, p. 210
  40. ↑ Shaw 1987, p. 217
  41. ↑ Shaw 1987, p. 216
  42. ↑ Shaw 1987, p. 82
  43. ↑ Shaw 1987, pp. 51–52

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patchwork</span> Needlework with fabric pieces sewn together

Patchwork or "pieced work" is a form of needlework that involves sewing together pieces of fabric into a larger design. The larger design is usually based on repeating patterns built up with different fabric shapes. These shapes are carefully measured and cut, basic geometric shapes making them easy to piece together.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fingerpaint</span> Paint intended to be applied with the fingers

Fingerpaint is a kind of paint intended to be applied with the fingers; it typically comes in tubes and is used by small children, though it has occasionally been used by adults either to teach art to children, or for their own use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faith Ringgold</span> American artist (1930–2024)

Faith Ringgold was an American painter, author, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, and intersectional activist, perhaps best known for her narrative quilts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clementine Hunter</span> American painter

Clementine Hunter was a self-taught Black folk artist from the Cane River region of Louisiana, who lived and worked on Melrose Plantation.

Miriam Nathan-Roberts was an American textile artist who specialized in Studio Art Quilting. Her work was centered on abstract "illusions of three dimensions on flat or semi-flat surfaces." Nathan-Roberts received many awards at the Quilt National over the years, including Best in Show, the People's Choice Award (1985), and the Juror's Award of Merit (2013); she served as Juror in 2005.

Quilt art, sometimes known as art quilting, mixed media art quilts or fiber art quilts, is an art form that uses both modern and 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 is typically hung or mounted.

The Quilt Treasures Project is an oral history project that documents the stories of a number of notable individuals who were instrumental in moving the 20th Century Quilt Revival forward in some significant way. These individuals include:

Pattern and Decoration was a United States art movement from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. The movement has sometimes been referred to as "P&D" or as The New Decorativeness. The movement was championed by the gallery owner Holly Solomon. The movement was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Hudson River Museum in 2008.

Michael Francis James is an American artist, educator, author, and lecturer. He is best known as a leader of the art quilt movement that began in the 1970s. He currently lives and maintains a studio in Lincoln, Nebraska.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katherine Westphal</span> Textile artist from Los Angeles, California, USA

Katherine Westphal was an American textile designer and fiber artist who helped to establish quilting as a fine art form.

Linda MacDonald was born in 1946, in Berkeley, California. She is a multimedia artist who was at the forefront of the studio quilt art movements. She has been called a "fine artist [who works] with quilting techniques."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Catherine Lamb</span> American artist (1949–2009)

Mary Catherine Lamb was an American textile artist, whose quilts reframed traditional Roman Catholic iconography. Recycling vintage textiles popular during the mid-20th Century, she both honored and affectionately skewered her Catholic upbringing.

Jane Burch Cochran is a fabric artist who is known for her work that combines traditional American quiltmaking with painting and fabric embellishments. She received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship for quiltmaking in 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Ray Laury</span>

Jean Ray Laury was an American artist and designer. She was one of the first fine artists to move to quilting as a medium of choice in the late 1950s. Her quilts followed neither traditional method nor pattern; they were bold, modern, colorful collages, often laced with humor and satire. Penning over twenty books and teaching over 2,000 workshops, Laury helped women see the creative possibilities in everyday objects and awake their sense of inspiration. Laury has been called a "foremother of a quilt revival", and "one of the pioneers" of non-traditional quilts.

Martha Neill Upton was a watercolorist, sculptor and studio quilt artist. Her quilted tapestries helped quilts become seen as fine art, rather than craft work, during the early 1970s. Her quilts were shown in the first major museum exhibition of non-traditional quilts, The New American Quilt at New York's Museum of Arts and Design, then called the Museum of Contemporary Craft, in 1976.

Martha Cole is a Canadian artist. She is known for her work with textiles, landscape, and artist's books, addressing themes of inter-contentedness, sustainability, and protection of ecological diversity. She currently resides in Disley, Saskatchewan. Cole's high school art teacher, Helmut Becker encouraged her to pursue a career in art. She was an instructor in the Extension Division, Fine Arts and Humanities, University of Regina.

Ross Palmer Beecher is a contemporary mixed media artist who creates "quilts, flags, portraits of famous film directors and American folk heroes, and other types of objects from aluminum cans and found objects". She lives and works in Seattle.

Geraldine Elizabeth Kahle Beyer is an American quilt designer, quilter, author, teacher and lecturer. Considered by the quilting industry and the publishing media to be of the first designers to form a fabric collection suited to the needs of quilters, she began her career in India after she had run out of yarn. Beyer's works have won awards in the print media, and she has written about the history of quilting and her techniques. She has designed collections for fabric companies, and has taught and lectured on the subject domestically and internationally. Beyer was inducted into the Quilters Hall of Fame in 1984.

Joan Schulze is an American artist, lecturer, and poet. Schulze's career spans over five decades: she is best known for her work of contemporary quilts, fiberarts, and collage. Schulze has been named a “pioneer of the art quilt movement,” and her influence has been compared to that of Robert Rauschenberg’s. Her work is in galleries and private collections worldwide including the Renwick Gallery/Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, & the Oakland Museum of California.

<i>The French Collection</i> Quilt series by Faith Ringgold

The French Collection is a series of twelve quilt paintings by American artist Faith Ringgold completed between 1991 and 1997. Divided into two parts composed of eight and four quilts each, the series utilizes Ringgold's distinct style of story quilts to tell the fictional story of a young African American woman in the 1920s, Willia Marie Simone, who leaves Harlem for Paris to live as an artist and model. The stories, illustrated in acrylic paint and written in ink surrounding the paintings, narrate Willia Marie's journey as she befriends famous artists, performers, writers, and activists, runs a café and works as a painter, and develops a distinct Black feminist intellectual worldview based on her experiences and identity. Willia Marie's interactions with notable modernist artists and their oeuvres are an archetypical example of Ringgold's responses to the predominantly white male artistic canon, wherein she often directly invoked, embraced, and challenged the central figures of modernist art.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.