Selected Works

of

Jeanne Aird

Graduate Seminar - Art 507

University of Idaho-MAT Program

Jason Ferguson, Instructor

September, 2009

I am an artist who uses fabric, dyes, paints, beads and thread as my medium of choice. I create what are called ‘Art Quilts.’ The ones I create are never meant for a bed, but for a wall. Most people think of quilts as bed coverings. When I tell people I make art quilts, they usually have little understanding of what that is.

An art quilt is defined by the Studio Art Quilt Association as: contemporary art work exploring and expressing aesthetic concerns common to the whole range of visual arts, painting, printing, photography, graphic design, assemblage, and sculpture, which retains however through material or technique a clear relationship to the folk art quilt from which it descends.

I am not an artist who enjoys working in series. I know many artists do enjoy working in series and I have been encouraged to do that. Exploring color, texture and pattern are what interest me the most in creating art. So, I guess you could say I’m a formalist, if you have to categorize me. Creating art quilts and the fabric in them is a slow, methodical, meditative process, one that I thoroughly enjoy. My life is usually quite hectic and making fabric and art quilts is an antidote to all the hustle and bustle.

Nature and the environment are issues I feel strongly about, and some of my work addresses that. But I am equally concerned about personal and public ethics, integrity and how we treat each other in this world. As a mother, a wife, a friend, a teacher, a citizen and an artist, I have a variety of concerns or layers, just as quilts have layers. If through looking at my work and reading about my thought process while creating them, I can get you to think about any of the above issues, I feel my work is successful. If you just enjoy them, for whatever reason, like how I enjoy creating them, then they are also successful.

Thank you for looking at my work. I look forward

to your comments.