Quilts while a utilitarian item found in most households, they can also be works of art.
In most cases the art comes from the design on the quilt, but for a group of artists in Edmonton, they have taken the idea of quilts and art in new directions.
The Filamenta Quilting Collective is Dawna Dey Harrish, Cathy Tomm and Sharon Willes Rubuliak, three Edmonton-area quilters who have exhibited their innovative quilted fabric and textile creations in over 30 art galleries in Western Canada.
"We got to know each other initially through the Edmonton and District Quilters' Guild and later as Edmonton-area members of the Fibre Art Network, a Western Canadian cooperative of fibre artists," said Dey Harrish, explaining she approached the Edmonton FAN members to see who might be interested to work collectively to exhibit their work.
Works from the collective are now at the Godfrey Dean Art Gallery in Yorkton with a show entitled Connections, which has quilts created strictly for art, although Dey Harrish said all three have a background in traditional quilt sewing.
"We all learned to sew from family members and at school," she said. "We also started as makers of traditional quilts and expanded to designing and producing contemporary art quilts."
Dey Harrish said the move to 'art quilts' was really a natural progression for the trio.
"Each of us possess a creative streak that we applied to craft-and-art-making and, by extension, to fibre art," she said. "Once we had learned the traditional quilting methods we felt the need to change the design or the layout somehow in order to experiment and/or make the work 'our own'. It was a natural step to start with an idea and develop that into a finished work or series of works."
For the show Dey Harrish said, "We worked individually from a theme and met regularly to bounce ideas and support each other."
Those artistic creations have found a steady interest from the art community.
Filamenta has had over 30 exhibitions, none of which have been in craft-related venues, said Dey Harrish, adding people look at the works from their own perspective of quilts.
"Generally, though, we have found that quilters tend to focus on how the work was produced whereas gallery goers tend to react to the use of fabric and quilting as a medium of expressing ideas," she said.
While the viewpoint may be different, Dey Harrish said in general everyone seems to like their efforts.
"Everyone relates to quilts as household goods and family treasures; many viewers share stories of heirlooms and expert quilters," she said. "Being familiar with the medium and the creativity involved they are very comfortable seeing quilts as artworks displayed in a gallery."
Although the works have found favour, there have been challenges in taking quilts to art.
As an example Willes Rubuliak's biggest challenge was executing the concept of the 3D enclosure or meditation tent called 'Enter Into Stillness.'
"This work was conceived as an interactive piece to entice the visitor into pondering the value of stillness and to facilitate the experience of stillness in a user-friendly way," she said.
Dey Harrish added her "biggest challenge was identifying suitable mediums for stiffening the variety of vintage gloves in order to make them free-standing sculptures."
As might be expected when three artists create a show together, each sees a different piece as their favourite.
Tomm's favourite is Exploits because it represents a personal journey into family history.
Willes Rubuliak's favourite is Follow the Breath because of the suggestion of movement, both physically by the organza layers, and conceptually by the figure, while Dawna noted she does not have a favourite piece, but her favourite materials were the gloves.
Dey Harrish said the three are still working to expand the idea of quilts as an art medium, adding she "is experimenting with digital landscape images printed onto fabric, and then enhanced with paint, stitch and quilting."
Willes Rubuliak is exploring further applications of kantha-style stitching (running stitch by hand) and subtle layering of fabric and imagery, and Tomm is dyeing her own fabrics and incorporating these into lively quilted works of her own design. She is also felting and producing bags and scarves.
