Eileen Alexander
Quilting with fabric "Art Quilting"
My second-grade art teacher told me I couldn’t draw. When I finally took a drawing class at age 19, I discovered she was wrong. College, career, marriage and family intervened until I took watercolor classes. In the years that ensued my Counted Cross Stitch pieces won awards. In 2006, I moved out of the city to a more rural setting near an Amish Community and began taking quilting classes at The Stitching Nook in Richmond, IN. My love or color and fabric was born. What followed was my quilts earned Blue Ribbons and Best of Show Rosettes in multiple county fairs and quilt shows. When I joined a Quilt Guild in Brownsburg IN and took a class in Art Quilting from Michael Stephens a true addict became hooked! Not realizing how bored I had become with the restrictions of squares, triangles, and rectangles; Art Quilting reignited my passion and set me free. Following that, I became a member of the Crewel Jewels Needlework Guild and my Art portfolio expanded further.
Generally I work from photos I have taken, over the years, to draw or sketch out a basic design, especially if architecture is involved. Then I allow the colors or designs to speak to me as to where I want to go with a piece. My signature has become old barns and landscapes which so often appear in my work. The basis for Quilting is fabric. Yet, in Art Quilting, my pallet has expanded to include acrylic paint, colored pencils, lace, Crewel Embroidery, thread painting, tulle, and Angelina fibers in my compositions.
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Over the years my work has been chosen to be displayed at both the Danville and Plainfield Public Libraries that have Art galleries. Since 2018 I have exhibited and sold through The Gallery on the Square in Danville, IN. In 2019 and 2022 I had works accepted for the Reflected Light Juried Art Show. In 2021 my work was on display along with pieces from the Crewel Jewels Needlework Guild’s showcase at the Sullivan -Muncie Cultural Arts Center in Zionsville, IN. It seems each year I manage to pull more and more awards for my work in Counted Cross Stitch as well as Quilting at the Hendricks County Fair open class Art Department. My love of the Arts continues to grow as I mature and it feeds my soul.
