“I used to go to the Library of Congress when I was in school in 1994 to read her unpublished manuscripts at those tables with the little green light,” the artist says. Last year, the New York Times asked her to make a quilt of the late African American science fiction writer Octavia Butler. She gets a lot of portrait requests, but she only takes the ones she finds personally meaningful.
GIRL ON HORSE SKETCH PROFESSIONAL
“This is my first professional space,” Butler says. Today, in her studio, she uses two giant longarm quilting machines affectionately named Godzilla and Godzuki after the 1970s Hanna-Barbera children’s series. Until last August, Butler worked from her home in South Orange, New Jersey, annexing the dining room table and living room floor, stitching by hand or on a standard household sewing machine. “After all of that, I load my quilt top onto my quilting machine and stitch it together with the batting and the backing fabric,” she says, describing a sewing practice known as appliqué. The selection, cutting, pinning and layering process consumes hundreds of hours.
I don’t know how many years it takes or how long that oil is going to smell like her.” My mother was Muslim and wore Muslim oils. “When you open the bin, the scent of jasmine and rose comes out. “I feel my mother and grandmother’s presence, because some of the fabrics I use are still some of their fabrics,” she tells me in her Jersey City studio. “I cut shapes based off my sketch and layer them until I have an image that is an impression of the original.” Over the decades, she has collected snippets and swaths of material, which she stores in large plastic bins: silk, wool, lace, velvet, hand-dyed batiks, vibrant African Dutch waxes, holographic vinyl. “I use that like a dressmaker’s pattern,” she says. My father spoke to me about the liberation of Ghana, his birthplace, in 1954, and I wish I had been there.”īutler enlarges each image on photo paper, using a Sharpie to delineate light-to-dark gradation.
My maternal grandmother would talk to me about her Louisiana Creole relatives. “I was so curious about these people and places I would never know. “I grew up looking at my family photos, which were black and white,” she says. She takes time to divine her subjects’ spirits-studying their gazes and stances, their clothing and accessories. (The last of these was a suggestion from her husband, John Butler, a longtime professional DJ.) Her sources vary widely: Farm Security Administration archives, a 1909 Rufus Holsinger portrait, Janette Beckman’s fiercely feminist 1987 photo of rappers Salt-N-Pepa. The horse fabric in this subject’s collar is called “I Run Faster Than My Rival.”īutler always begins with a photograph. Her subjects shimmer in brilliant hues of fuchsia, imperial blue or acid green, with a purple lip, an orange cheekbone or a turquoise temple for emphasis.
GIRL ON HORSE SKETCH SKIN
She focuses on people of African descent but avoids representational skin tone. Today, her life-size quilts hang in museums across the country. She made her first portrait quilt, Francis and Violette (Grandparents), while pursuing a master’s in arts education in 2001. Butler’s stunning work has helped shatter that barrier. For years, quilting has been dismissed by the fine arts world as decorative craft or domestic labor.
The artist touches up her Questlove portrait using a longarm quilting machine, enabling her to sew the quilt’s top, back and batting at the same time.Ī renowned portraitist, Butler has done for quilt-making what Matisse did for paper-cutting: elevating a humble technique to a high art. This article is a selection from the July/August 2023 issue of Smithsonian magazine Subscribe Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $15 The gold, orange and green in her skirt suggest her African heritage. The background of sunflowers symbolizes the constancy of the North Star as Tubman’s unwavering faith. Her skin is a contrast of cool blues and fiery reds, capturing her need to hide along with her tenacity and courage. Made entirely out of fabric, it portrays Tubman in a kaleidoscope of colors. Celeste Slomanīy 2021, Butler’s large quilted portrait, I Go to Prepare a Place for You, was hanging in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. What would she think of everything that I think I have hard in life?’”įor her portrait of Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Butler chose colors influenced by the stage set in his Oscar-winning documentary Summer of Soul. The 19th-century photograph featured the famed Underground Railroad conductor when she was around 40, about the age Butler was at the time. Bisa Butler’s portrait of Harriet Tubman began with a minuscule black-and-white carte de visite.
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