Above:
Touched by Moonlight
2004; kimono fabric,
silk, cotton; 15.25 x 43 in.
Below (top):
Below (bottom):
Figure F,
2008
Figure C,
2009
collage on paper
collage on paper
10x8 in.
10x8 in.
Opposite:
Figure D,
2009
collage on paper
10 x 8 in.
In an appliqué class she took soon after set-
tling in the Golden State, Schulze experi-
mented with visual and textural effects.
She embellished, scrunched, stacked, add-
ed, and subtracted. The following year,
Abalone,
a texture-rich appliqué of cotton,
silk, and nylon net, finished with hand-
stitching and cutwork, was accepted into
a juried exhibition organized by the Penin-
sula Stitchery Guild.
She always intended her quilts to be seen
as artwork. She was persistent in contacting
galleries and insistent that her work be
judged by the same criteria as paintings.
In the mid-1970s she received her first solo
exhibition at the Triton Museum in Santa
Clara, California, and her first commis-
sions. Fiber artists Jean Ray Laury and
Constance Howard became her mentors
and lifelong friends.
Schulze tried many approaches to needle-
work and eventually added photography,
printmaking, and dyeing to her skill set.
But quilting would become her métier.
“Stitching gives me a chance to enjoy all the
nuances,” she says - “the irregularities of
the glue-transfer process, the juxtaposition
of images and lines - and a way to empha-
size and strengthen the composition
while adding texture to the piece.”
Composition is where Schulze shines.
In preparing the elements of her art, she has
Schulze’s compositions arc
like visualpoetry: elegant,
m indful arrangements with
multidimensional layers.
altered fabrics through painting, photog-
raphy, photocopy transfer, and, in recent
years, digital technology. She always has
her camera on hand; many quilts include
transfers of photographs she shot herself.
But while a camera objectively records
scenes, it is Schulze who chooses the im-
ages and juxtapositions for her work.
City
Woman
, 2010, combines a woman’s face,
foot, and accessories with elegant rooms,
flowers, an open book, and an observer.
“Joan’s quilts draw on notions of ab-
straction,” scholar Sarah Tucker writes in
Poetic License,
“to explore and express in
visual terms a need to go beyond the con-
fines of material experience - reality - to
that of the senses and the imagination.”
As an artist, Schulze is fascinated with
layers. “Between them lies the opportunity
to freeze time, work with complex ideas,
and explore another dimension,” she says.
“When a work is finished, my final question
is: Is it more than the sum of its parts?” For
Private Dreams of the Writer,
2005-2006,
Schulze collaged monoprints, photocopies,
printed text, and drawing onto silk. The
prints are fragmented, some over-painted
and inked, leaving the writer’s dreams un-
articulated but forming a compositional
cohesion. Work on hand is open to reassess-
ment; in 2010 she resized the machine-
quilted piece as a iq-by-sq-inch scroll.
066 american craft fcb/marn
Photos (4): Joan Schulze
