This IS/NOT a Quilt: Featured Artist, Anna Buckner, originally published on November 29th @ quiltblock.tumblr.com.
GRIDS ON GRIDS ON GRID, by Anna Bucker, 2015. Pieced fabric scraps on stretcher, acrylic matte medium, 12” x 10.”
Happy Tuesday everyone!
Today I’m delighted to introduce you to the artist, Anna Buckner - who’s work is directly inspired by quilt influences and contexts. She is currently a visiting professor at Michigan State University, adding to their already star-studded staff developing content related to quilt culture - but her work is deeply rooted in painting and printmaking.
Frances, by Anna Buckner, 2016. Acrylic on pieced fabric.
Whenever I stumble upon work like this, so clearly existing outside the traditional lines of quilting but so reflective of the medium as well, my efforts and the theme of BLOCK - to explore the metaphors and meaning of quilts and quilt-making - is galvanized by it, just as much as it is by any “traditional” quilt featured here.
In fact, similarly to Magritte’s infamous painting, The Treachery of Images, the more I consider what a quilt is, the less it becomes a quilt at all.
DEEP END, by Anna Buckner, 2016. Fabric scraps on stretcher, 60" x 40."
An excerpt of Buckner’s artist statement from her website:
I piece the fabric scraps together forming a quilt top that is then stretched on a support. The design of the piecework is appropriated from traditional quilt patterns, but the initial symmetry of the piecework is compromised through stretching, causing the material to warp. Therefore, the support of the painting is a tool for transformation, revealing the potential of these materials, and pushing them into a role for which they are not traditionally used...I do not want my work to stand steadily, but rather float. This unpredictability, embracing transformation, encourages expansion through stretching.
ORANGE, by Anna Buckner, 2015. Oil on pieced linen, 12” x 9.5.”