Handmade: What Dreams May Come
BY BETH BEASLEYPHOTOS BY MATT ROSE
Settling down beneath a cozy quilt can certainly induce a good night’s sleep, but few coverlets are likely to inspire vivid dreaming. Susan Webb Lee’s creations are an exception. Her adventurous, often abstract constructions evoke images of stained glass windows, mosaics and avant-garde paintings, elevating a functional craft to fine art status.Although more likely to be displayed on a wall than draped over a bed, the artist’s work holds true to the rich tradition of quiltmaking that is its foundation. “I would like each of my quilts to be viewed on several levels — from a technical standpoint, but also an artistic one,” she says. “I think they can be interpreted in various ways by different people.”
Susan’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally since she started creating quilts in the late 1970s, and her pieces are featured in a number of private and public collections, including the Fine Arts Museum of the South in Mobile, Alabama, Wingate University, in Wingate, North Carolina and Appalachian State University in Boone.
“Her work is not exactly what you’d expect to find — it’s like a happy apparition — very innovative,” says Mark Richard Leach, Founding Director and Chief Curator at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design in Charlotte, where Susan’s 2001 quilt Hello Darkness has been on display for the last few years. “Our mission here is to identify singular moments of creative excellence; this piece is exactly that,” Leach adds.
Graduate art classes in surface design launched Susan on a creative path with fabric and dyes and ultimately with fine art quilting. “I started out painting geometric designs on fabric, using dyes, then I’d quilt around the painted shapes,” says Susan. “Years later I ended up piecing commercial fabrics and eventually incorporated hand-painted fabrics.”
Early on in her quilting career, Susan started shaking up rigid compositions by adding patches that were off-kilter with the rest of the design. “I started by simply adding appliquéd pieces at odd angles to quilts that had tightly structured surfaces,” she says of her non-linear approach. “Each quilt I made gave me ideas for other quilts.”
Susan works from the Barnardsville home she shares with her husband, Wally. The walls are covered with quilts, some in frames behind glass, but there are also paintings, handmade prints and drawings — many of which she has acquired through trading her work with other artists.
In the downstairs studio, her two dogs, Sadie and Oscar, like to lie on the carpet next to the shelving units that are stacked high with supplies of neatly folded fabric, keeping company while she creates. “I aim for balance and harmony in my work and in my life,” she says.
“It’s possible that my quilts are indirectly influenced by relationships, memories, a particular song, or just the colors and textures of the fabrics themselves,” says Susan. “Quite often, the hand-dyed pieces are enough of an inspiration for me to start cutting and sewing.”
Many of the fabrics she uses are dyed, painted or hand-printed personally by Susan. She often experiments with Procion fiber reactive dyes as well as with traditional batik, or resist-dyed, methods.
When it comes to construction techniques, Susan has no self-limitations and will sometimes mix machine-pieced patchwork and appliqué with either a machine or hand-quilted top, depending on what will give the best effect. She may also add elements other than fabric to a quilt.
In one case, chunky beads were hand-sculpted from polymer clay to mimic the quilt’s rich pastel colors and square shape. Their patterning, set against a dark background, adds an interesting dimension to the finished piece.
It’s not unusual to find combinations of polka dots, florals, plaid and batik together with patches of hand-dyed and commercially printed fabrics, all within close proximity. “I know I have an unusual color sense,” says Susan. “Who would think of putting this patch of magenta with that burnt orange color?”
Susan admits to making design decisions in the process of piecing her quilts, rather than having a preconceived plan for the finished product. “It’s just how I’ve always worked,” she says. “You never know how it’ll turn out.”
Measuring patches for a perfect fit can be a challenge, particularly if they are slightly askew. “I used to be good at math in high school,” she says, “but not now.”
Ultimately, Susan makes each piece into eye candy, with an overall balance in hue and arrangement. With a talent for the interplay of color, shape and texture, patches of fabric flow almost organically in her quilts, sprouting patterns and dynamic rhythms that dance to life on the thread of inspiration.
The results are vivid and surprising, with a playful quality and unorthodox composition. These inspired examples of textile art seem at once constructed and intuitive, as if artist and fabric were in collaboration in the creative process…like lucid dreaming.
