Meet our talented featured artists.
MARY DOWNES
KING COUNTY, WA
Inspiration for my quilts is drawn from the people and places I have lived. I feel the strong pull of the natural beauty and culture of my native state, Hawaii, and the other places I have lived, including Alaska, California, and now, Washington.
My ideas come from everywhere, from a simple noodle soup to the magnificent orcas of the Puget Sound, or from a joke or a clever turn of phrase. More often than not, however, inspiration finds me. I enjoy adding a twist to the world around me using color and form.
I started quilting 32 years ago with Hawaiian hand-stitched "kapas" and in 2000 began experimenting with heavily machine applique' techniques. Recently, I have experimented making whole-cloth, hand-painted art quilts. I am working on a collection of topographic quilts of the Pacific Northwest, Alaska and beyond. These range from large nautical maps to mountain meadow scenes.
My first solo show was at the La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum. My quilts now reside throughout the United States, Europe and Australia..
KING COUNTY, WA
Inspiration for my quilts is drawn from the people and places I have lived. I feel the strong pull of the natural beauty and culture of my native state, Hawaii, and the other places I have lived, including Alaska, California, and now, Washington.
My ideas come from everywhere, from a simple noodle soup to the magnificent orcas of the Puget Sound, or from a joke or a clever turn of phrase. More often than not, however, inspiration finds me. I enjoy adding a twist to the world around me using color and form.
I started quilting 32 years ago with Hawaiian hand-stitched "kapas" and in 2000 began experimenting with heavily machine applique' techniques. Recently, I have experimented making whole-cloth, hand-painted art quilts. I am working on a collection of topographic quilts of the Pacific Northwest, Alaska and beyond. These range from large nautical maps to mountain meadow scenes.
My first solo show was at the La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum. My quilts now reside throughout the United States, Europe and Australia..
LOUISE HARRIS
SKAGIT COUNTY, WA
In my previous life, before quilting, I worked as a nurse in a geriatric psychiatric ward, in a weld shop and an oil refinery, all rather drab surroundings. After I started quilting, I made a conscious decision that for the rest of my life I wanted to work with vibrant color.
Since 1989, I have studied with Nancy Crow, an internationally known instructor. Her students learn to work improvisationally and all seams are sewn in as opposed to appliqué, with no embellishment. In my art quilts, I use no patterns, no rulers, only ideas and equipment. I have explored several shapes, circles, triangles and irregular squares and rectangles, finding limitless ways to use them.
I use hand dyed fabric for the most part in my art quilts and have started dyeing my own. I enjoy enhancing the fabric even more with surface design, stamping, Shibori (Japanese tie dye) and other methods of patterning. The quilts are machine pieced and quilted.
My quilts have won first place awards at APNQ in Seattle (now APWQ, Tacoma). The quilts have been shown in Chicago, Illinois; South Carolina; Santa Fe, New Mexico; California; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They are in collections in Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States.
I have not forgotten patterned, commercial fabric, which I selected in my early years of quilting. I enjoy using it in simple patterns to make quilts to be used.
