Barb Forrister - Austin, Texas

1. How do you describe yourself? I am a textile artist who likes to create in a 3 dimensional manner. I usually begin with a whole cloth dyed and or painted piece and build from there. I enjoy working with various materials such as beads, heat distressed plastics, natural and synthetic fibers to impart texture to my work.

2. What is your creative process? My creative process varies. Sometimes I work from sketches and other times, I dive right in and see where things take me. Even when I work from a sketch, I am always surprised to see how the finished piece has evolved.

3. What's your style? I enjoy working in a pictorial style with an emphasis on nature. However, I like to be flexible and work in an abstract manner as well. Two aspects common to both styles of my work are my propensity for 3 dimensional work and my desire to create art from recycled materials.

4. How long have you been a quilt maker/fiber artist? I have been quilting for ten years, five of which I was immersed in traditional style quilts. In 2005, my focus began to change toward s more art oriented quilts. In November 2006, I attended my first International Quilt Festival in Houston and my eyes were opened up to a whole new world. I can still remember feeling like I had finally found my passion. I remember promising myself that one day, I too, would have my work displayed there. Since then, I have been blessed to be a part of this wonderful venue and to have a career doing what I truly love.

5. Do you listen to music when you make art? I do listen to music while I am creating art. If I am composing, I listen to classical and opera music. If I am in the construction phase, I tend to opt for contemporary or alternative rock.

6. What do you do when you are blocked creatively? Fortunately, this does not happen to me very often however when I am creatively blocked, I try changing the scenery. I visit museums, galleries, art supply stores, watch a movie or just go for a walk and enjoy nature. In this way, I am able to look at my world through fresh eyes and gather inspiration.

7. Do you teach? Currently, I am not teaching but I have taught classes in the past. My favorite part of teaching is seeing a student’s eyes light up when they realize they have just made something wonderful.

8. Are there artistic endeavors that you have yet to do? One artistic endeavor that I have would like to do is write some articles for publication. I would love to share what I have learned with other people.

9. How do you balance your family life and art? I am very blessed to be a full time artist and my family is very supportive. I am married to my best friend and soul mate and we have two beautiful teenage daughters. Most days, I work in the studio from 9-4:30 when the girls get home from school. At that time, I stop to visit with them and ask how their day went. This is a very special time for us. We each take turns cooking during the weekdays which makes it so much easier when I have to work at night. We band together to get the chores done during the weekend. This seems to work for us.

10. What is the best part about what you do? The best part of being a textile artist is that I truly love what I do! I enjoy the feel of the cloth and the hum of the machine as the piece evolves. I am happiest when I am in the zone.

Loris Bogue - Simi Valley, California

1. How do you describe yourself? Curious. A non-stop student. A happy mother, wife, artist.

2. What is your creative process? I am usually inspired by the quirky, the things that surprise me, the juxtaposition of things that aren't usually seen together. My digital camera and Photoshop play a big part in my creative process. I also keep notebooks of things I've cut out to save for inspiration.

3. What's your style? I enjoy doing photo realistic work, particularly faces. I like to dye, discharge, and silkscreen fabric, so many times my art work means creating new fabric as an end in itself.

4. How long have you been a quilt maker/fiber artist? Since 1984, but I have been making clothing since 1960! A lady I worked with in 1984 used to hand quilt at lunch time in our conference room, and she told me where she took lessons. I tried a hand piecing class and was hooked after the first lesson.

5. Do you listen to music when you make art? Usually I listen to classic rock music and talk radio. Sometimes I'll have the TV on.

6. What do you do when you are blocked creatively? I go through my art books and look particularly at 20th century art. I also browse my quilt show catalogs and books to see what others have done. When I'm driving I find I do a lot of thinking about the current project I'm working on.

7. Do you teach? I taught classes at Quilters' Studio in Newbury Park, California, usually new techniques that I learned on my own. I've also taught a class in making dress forms and how to photograph quilts. My favorite part is knowing that a student went home and used what she learned to create something on her own.

8. Are there artistic endeavors that you have yet to do? I am completing my Certificate in Web Design from Pierce College this year. Earning the certificate has meant taking graphic arts classes, but I want to continue my art education by taking drawing and illustration after my certificate is complete.

9. How do you balance your family life and art? Since I work from home, I struggle constantly to prioritize and get the things done that I want to do. My husband knew what he was getting into 15 years ago when we married, as far as my compulsion to create, so he supports my art wholeheartedly.

10. What is the best part about what you do? Between completing the minor remodeling of the older home we bought last year, the new businesses my husband and I created, and my textile art, I feel blessed to have a life where I can fill my need to create all day long!

Kathy York - Austin, Texas

1. How do you describe yourself? A happy go lucky artist with phases of complete obsession.

2. What is your creative process? I need a quiet space to think and dream. Ideas come to me in the form of pictures. Sometimes they are complete pictures and sometimes only partially formed. The idea is usually expressive of some larger concept and as I work I find multiples levels of meaning in my work as the daily life gets expressed within the larger picture.

3. What's your style? My style is basically bold and bright. I like to be fearless in my attempts to try new techniques. I used to think that working in a series would be boring. However, I am finding that over time I revisit different ideas and compositions and make them again with a different view. My series happen over years and I work on them concurrently with other series. I like for the work to tell a story regardless if it is pictorial or abstract.

4. How long have you been a quilt maker/fiber artist? I have been making fiber art since 2003, and that started with my participation in the Journal Quilt Project.

5. Do you listen to music when you make art? Sometimes I listen to music when I quilt, I love adult alternative. And I almost always listen to music when I am doing surface design. When I am quilting or sewing, I will usually 'watch' a movie. The best ones are just background noise, films that I have seen so many times that it doesn't matter if I miss a section because my machine is humming too loudly.

6. What do you do when you are blocked creatively? When I am blocked creatively, I take a break. I will take a long hike in the trails around Austin. I also like to do traditional piecing or fabric dyeing when I have finished a difficult piece of art, either technically or emotionally challenging.

7. Do you teach? I do teach, but rarely. It is hard to get childcare, and difficult to travel. My favorite part of teaching? Watching the light bulbs turn on over students' heads and seeing their creativity expressed!! Total joy!

8. Are there artistic endeavors that you have yet to do? I want to take an idea and expand it in about 30 different ways, large and small (right now!) I would love to have a solo exhibit. I would love exhibit my work more frequently in art museums. I would love to sell more of my work.

9. How do you balance your family life and art? I temporarily lose balance when I am hip deep in a project. Then the balance swings away from art during both crisis and lulls. My family is so incredibly important to me, and I have to take care of myself too. My rock climbing period of my life was all about balance. It was my best literal skill (not strength!). It is a perfect metaphor for life and so remains in the forefront of my thinking and planning for each day. For me, making art is all about self expression. But there is no self to express if I am not connected to my family and friends. Balance is key.

10. What is the best part about what you do? Playing with color and communicating with a world larger than the walls of my house, both through my blog and exhibiting my work.

visit Kathy's blog in the right column

Jeannie Palmer Moore - Escondido, California

1. How do you describe yourself? I am a mixed-media artist who continues to explore the painting and dyeing of fabric for creating art quilts.

2. What is your creative process? I tend to get an idea in my head and then draw small sketches in a sketchpad. I work out how I will accomplish the textures on small pieces of cloth because I prefer to paint and dye all of my own fabrics for my quilts.

3. What's your style? Abstract with emphasis on surface design best describes my style. I'm starting to do more whole cloth pieces with a variety of stitching.

4. How long have you been a quilt maker/fiber artist? I've always been an artist but dyed my first piece of fabric about 5 years ago. I was instantly hooked to fabric at that time.

5. Do you listen to music when you make art? Yes, I listen to quite a variety of music- Bon Jovi, Michael Buble, Rod Stewart, Jason Mraz and Rodrigo y Gabriela.

6. What do you do when you are blocked creatively? The creative juices start flowing when I flip through quilt books and quilt catalogs. I let my mind assimilate all of the images and ideas sprout!

7. Do you teach? I love to demonstrate my techniques for groups. I am starting to teach more because I enjoy sharing and exchanging ideas.

8. Are there artistic endeavors that you have yet to do? I'd like to take a cake decorating class and make a huge artistic sculpture like cake.

9. How do you balance your family life and art? The kitchen is my other creative studio. I love to cook and that keeps my family happy!

10. What is the best part about what you do? Just being able to do what I love to do the most--- creating art quilts!

http://www.jpmartist.com/

Peggy Calvert - Orange, California

1. How do you describe yourself? Outgoing, curious, fun loving, fast moving, fast thinking, strong.

2. What is your creative process? planning, drawing, notes, etc. I spend a lot of time in the incubation step of the creative process, with ideas and pictures running around in my head. I actually "think" that I spend too much time doing this. I feel better when I can spill my ideas onto paper....I am more of a writer than a draw-er, so many of the pages in my idea book( can't call it a sketch book) have more words than images. The quality of my drawing is roughly 2nd grade!

3. What's your style? Still in development, though I think whimsically pictorial. I enjoy creating characters and images that tell stories.

4. How long have you been a quilt maker/fiber artist? It depends on what you call fiber art? If you include embroidery on jeans and off-loom weaving than 40+ years. If you don't, than about 4!

5. Do you listen to music when you make art? Nope! The sound of the sewing machine is the only sound I want. I can get into the zone more quickly if the room is quiet! However when working (playing?) with a group of artists, the chatter and laughter eases the intensity and is very conducive to new images and the ongoing creative process.

6. What do you do when you are blocked creatively? Change my activity, walk, look through magazines and books (not necessarily art related.) Have you ever stood in front of a really good newsstand that has hundreds of magazines and just picked up what looked interesting for a shot of ideas from-some-other-world? Very inspiring!

7. Do you teach? Not art! Still learning.

8. Are there artistic endeavors that you have yet to do? Sing in a rock band???? Seriously, there are plenty, but I am really interested in getting better at the simple stuff. I love hand dyed fabric, painted surfaces, but that is so much more stuff to buy/store/use....too overwhelming for me.

9. How do you balance your family life and art? Being single this is fairly simple. It is my cat demanding dinner not a crowd! The hard part for me is balancing time for art/swimming/reading/gardening/and oh yes, sleeping! Not to mention the 40 hours I spend so I can support my habits!

10. What is the best part about what you do? The great people I meet and the beautiful art and traditional quilts I see. I love sharing a small part of the success of other artists. The stories are the best part. The why, the how, the dream, the design, the leap over the hurdle, the frustrations and the amazing joy of publication, purchase or awards and the compliments of others who appreciate our work.

http://quiltpoetearthandsky.blogspot.com/

Linda Teddlie Minton - San Antonio, TX

1. How do you describe yourself? I usually just call myself an artist. If asked, I will specify “fiber art”, which can then be further explained as “art quilter”.

2. What is your creative process? Although I always have an end product in mind, I rarely plan or draw out the entire piece or agonize over the process. It seems to happen organically as I work. This is the magic of art, for me. It truly seems to come from somewhere outside myself, and that’s the most mysterious part.

3. What's your style? I’ve experimented with lots of styles. I tend to steer away from pictorial, preferring to put my own twist on realism, whether by abstracting shapes or by distorting color and light. Thread painting on a wholecloth quilt base is also very exciting to me, as is creating my own fabrics by dyeing, painting, screen printing, and other surface design techniques. Digital manipulation has become a recent passion. Texture, whether visual or actual, is very important in my work, and I often inject humor or a literary reference, which may sometimes be obvious only to myself.

4. How long have you been a quilt maker/fiber artist? Like many other fiber artists, I started out as a traditional quilter. I think I morphed into a fiber artist fairly quickly, but it’s probably been about 10 years.

5. Do you listen to music when you make art? I did, until I lost the hearing in one ear a couple of years ago. Since then, it tends to irritate me rather than inspire me, so I generally work in silence. I miss working to music, as I used to love classic ‘80’s rock and roll.

6. What do you do when you are blocked creatively? I don’t think I’ve ever been creatively blocked. My main problem always seems to be deciding which project to work on next. Maybe that’s why I often end up literally mixing different media in a single piece … I want to do it all! It may be the reason that I also tend to work in other media besides fiber. Beading, assemblage, doll-making and bookbinding are always there if I feel the urge to break away and do something different.

7. Do you teach? Not formally, although I’ve always thought I’d like to give it a whirl. I love interacting with other artists, and being a “perpetual student” myself, I think it would be fun.

8. Are there artistic endeavors that you have yet to do? I’d like to take some drawing and painting classes, as I’m strictly self-taught in those areas.

9. How do you balance your family life and art? Since I’m a widow, you’d think that this would be easy! But somehow I still struggle to find time for my art. I’m in awe of young mothers, for example, who manage to do both. Since I’ve recently moved and consolidated my studio, I’m hoping to concentrate more on my art now.

10. What is the best part about what you do? This was the hardest question of all to answer! I can’t think of any part that I don’t love. The mental exercise of settling on a theme, researching literary references that I might use as inspiration, learning a new technique and then taking the leap of faith to use it in an actual art quilt, problem solving, the thrill as it all starts to come together … even deciding on a title is fun. I guess I have to say the best part is the exhilaration of creating something that never existed before I thought of it!

http://fiberreflections.blogspot.com/

Cynthia St. Charles - Billings, Montana

1. How do you describe yourself? Textile Artist

2. What is your creative process? My ideas usually come to me fully formed as a mental visual image. I often need to do a significant amount of research to confirm the accuracy (or believability) of my imagery. Generally, I will do a rough sketch, including a color plan, which I refer to when I am creating my fabrics.

3. What's your style? I have been told my style is Expressive. Bold simplified imagery, sometimes primitive, gestural and intuitive. I have long focused on surface design techniques and enjoy working in whole cloth. My preferred approach involves planning out an entire piece and creating it using dyes, paints, resist, and printing. Finally, the quilting is added and often my work includes embellishments of glass beads, stone chips, or something I have created from polymer clay.

4. How long have you been a quilt maker/fiber artist? I have worked as a quilt / textile artist since 2002. By 2004, I was able to walk away from a stressful career as a School Psychologist to work full time as a studio artist.

5. Do you listen to music when you make art? I enjoy listening to National Public Radio during my studio time. I also really enjoy authentic blues, rock and even some of the alternative rock I've been exposed to through my young adult children. I also really love opening the window and just listening to the birds!

6. What do you do when you are blocked creatively? I find changing mediums is one thing that really helps get the creative flow going. I think I am happiest when I am exploring and discovering. So, switching to paper or metal or watercolors, or visual journaling help unlock the block.

7. Do you teach? I rarely teach any more. I was a classroom teacher and college professor for over 20 years. I consider myself retired from teaching. I will teach an occasional technique workshop when it works out, but I am not actively pursuing the teaching aspect of textile art. That said, when I do teach - I consider my role that of an artistic facilitator. I strive to create an environment that facilitates discovery and exploration for my workshop participants.

8. Are there artistic endeavors that you have yet to do? I have been working hard the past 2 years to create a solid body of work in order to solicit a solo show somewhere. I have a couple of loyal galleries in the region, but I would love to add one on each U.S. coast.

9. How do you balance your family life and art? My studio is in my home so it is just a matter of commuting down the stairs to go to work. This makes it easy to integrate daily studio work into my everyday life. I usually begin my day in my studio with a cup of tea and some quiet time with my visual journal. Surface design work frequently requires a significant amount of time waiting for fabrics to batch, dry, or wash out. This process allows me to transition easily and quickly from studio to home and family on the spur of the moment.

10. What is the best part about what you do? I have always wanted to be an artist. I never dreamed it would be possible for me to devote so much of my time and energy to creative endeavors. After working so many years in a super high stress profession, I cherish the opportunity to be my own boss, set my own pace, and release so much of the turmoil I dealt with in my former profession.

http://www.cynthiastcharles.com/
http://cynthia-stcharles.blogspot.com/