Top left: Schulze
Top right: She peels
squares an element into
loose paper off the back
a collage in her newest
bit by bit, dampening it
series, Time to Speak.
before removing more.
Below left: Schulze is
Below right: She sews
careful not to disturb the
collagcd pieces together
images unless she wants
before batting, backing,
a distressed effect.
and, finally, quilting.
In
Angel Drawings,
an ethereal medita-
tion in black thread on silk organza that
Schulze made in 2003, machine-stitched
lines seem to take form, then dissolve.
You can sense a similar reverie in one of
her poems: “I sit and spin my thoughts /
high up in the air / my shadow goes before
me / drifting among floating clouds.” Like
her quilts, Schulze’s poetry is collaged,
layered, and subtle.
It’s this boundless creative acuity that
makes Schulze a sought-after instructor and
juror. This year, she’ll teach in Australia
and New Zealand, as well as at Haystack
Mountain School of Crafts and the Pacific
Northwest Art School.
But China holds a special allure for her.
Since her invitation to the first Fiber Art
Biennale in Beijing in
2000,
Schulze has
participated in every one as an artist, com-
mittee member, or juror. She recently re-
turned from her seventh trip to the country,
where she was a visiting professor of art at
Beijing’s Tsinghua University. She was
instrumental in bringing the exhibition
“Changing Landscapes: Contemporary
Chinese Fiber Art” to the San Jose Museum
of Quilts & Textiles in 2009. SJMQT has
plans to send the retrospective of her work
to China in 2012; a Chinese translation by
Teresa Huang is already part of the
Poetic
License
book.
While the technical aspects of her work
are considerable, Schulze has never avoided
challenges or uncharted terrain. Quilting is
“the most heroic thing I do in the studio,”
she says. Skills and central concerns deepen
over time; new understandings take shape;
inspirations and obstacles lead to break-
throughs. And in opening her discoveries
to us, she gives us a larger, multilevel per-
spective of the world we share.
+
joan-of-arts.com
Suzanne Smith Amey is a freelance writer in
Omaha, Nebraska, with a particular interest in
fiber and quilts.
068 american craft fcb/marn
Photos (4): Mark Tuschman
