Artists & Inspiration

“I love being inside my brain and pushing myself to think in ever more complex ways because I know the ideas are there for the taking. It’s all about being focused and disciplined and making use of one’s abilities.” – Nancy Crow Artist’s Statement – Nancy Crow I have made

“Being creative is not so much the desire to do something as the listening to that which wants to be done: the dictation of the materials.” – Anni Albers Reflecting back on her career, Anni Albers recalled how “threads…caught me…against my will…. But circumstances held me to threads and they

“I find inspiration all over. Textures in nature, weathered urban environments, my travels, things I hear on the news or my own history and life. Often, inspiration comes from the very materials I work with, be it fabric, paper, paint or found objects.” – Zwia Lipkin My studio is my

“Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed.” Sister Corita Kent Corita Kent (1918–1986) was an artist, educator, and advocate for social justice. At age 18

“Beyond the function of it as something to make you warm, you can’t divide it from the function that it beautifies your world.” Sarah Nishiura Sarah Nishiura grew up in Detroit and now lives in Chicago, where she uses traditional techniques to craft one-of-a-kind quilts from her own designs. Sarah

“The pictures were painted directly through me, without any preliminary drawings, and with great force. I had no idea what the paintings were supposed to depict; nevertheless I worked swiftly and surely, without changing a single brush stroke.” “Life, is a farce if a person does not serve truth.” — Hilma

“I cannot expect even my own art to provide all of the answers, only to hope it keeps asking the right questions.” — Grace Hartigan “I can hear my mother ever since I was a child saying ‘Grace you’re so dissatisfied—so restless,’” the artist Grace Hartigan recalled.  This impulse to search,

“Working on the detailed intricate arrangements of small pieces of fabric and the complex process of sewing them together keeps me sane.  It is a meditation: a time of focused attention while I sew together my creative vision of the universe.” –– Niraja Lorenz Niraja Lorenz The daughter of an

“I’ve never bothered painting the ugly things in life. People struggling, having difficulty. You meet that when you go out, and then you have to come back and see the same thing hanging on the wall. No. I wanted something beautiful that you could sit down and look at. And

Sam Gilliam (November 30, 1933 – June 25, 2022) was an American abstract painter, sculptor, and arts educator. Born in Mississippi, and raised in Kentucky, Gilliam spent his entire adult life in Washington, D.C., eventually being described as the “dean” of the city’s arts community.Originally associated with the Washington Color School, a group of Washington-area artists

Basil Kincaid (b. 1986, St. Louis, Missouri) is an American artist who honors and evolves traditional practices through quilting, collaging, photography, installation and performance. Implementing materials vested with emotional and memorial content, Kincaid allows these mediums to function as spiritual technology that forward various wisdoms born from Kincaid’s greatest values:

Faith Ringgold (born Faith Willi Jones; October 8, 1930 – April 13, 2024) was an American painter, author, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, and intersectional activist, perhaps best known for her narrative quilts. Ringgold was born in Harlem, New York City, and earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the City College of New York. She was an art teacher