Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class.

Today we'll be discussing something many people might not think of as art at all, quilting. A quilt is a textile made of three layers that are stitched together, a decorative top layer, a simple bottom layer, and a layer of what's called batting in between. Batting is usually made of cotton or wool or a blend of fibers. It's what gives the quilt thickness and warmth. Historically, that layer of a quilt featured patterns of geometric shapes, squares, triangles, and so forth. Quilts were generally made as bed covers, and given such a practical purpose, they were generally categorized as craftwork rather than artwork. However, quilts can also be used solely for aesthetic purposes. Many people display these art quilts on the wall like a painting.

The history of quilting goes back to ancient Egypt. But today we'll concentrate on art quilts in the United States. In the late 1800s, quilters influenced by English embroidery and Japanese art began experimenting with high quality fabrics like silks and satins to create quilts with strong visual appeal, with interesting, unusual patterns, embellished with fancy embroidery, stitches, beads, lace. These lavish creations came to be known as crazy quilts. Since crazy quilts don't have that inner layer of batting, they can't be used as bed covers for warmth. They clearly were created just for display.

Much later in the 1970s, some academically trained artists noticed relationships between the geometric patterns of traditional quilts, and the geometric patterns of certain types of abstract art in painting and sculpture that were popular at the time. In fact, these abstract artists studied patterns used in traditional quilts and then made quilts of their own, applying their formal training in painting and sculpture to develop their own quilting styles. They wanted to distinguish their works from traditional utilitarian quilts. They were the ones who promoted the term art quilt. Naturally, these art quilters wanted to see their quilts in museums and galleries. The conventional art world showed little interest, even though many aspects of the quilts, such as their use of geometric designs, aligned with the principles of various modern art movements. One group that did show interest was collectors. Typically, though they collected antique quilts, which were valuable, mostly due to their age. But some began purchasing these new art quilts, hoping that their value would increase. This financial support enable many early art quilters to thrive, and eventually to create formal training programs for quilters. They began promoting and selling their work through exhibitions.

Today, art quilts are exhibited in major art museums across the United States. Quilt making techniques have become so sophisticated that many can be mistaken for a painting until you get up close. For example, one of the quilts pictured in your textbook, the one titled splash, from a distance it's easily mistaken for an abstract painting. Like it was made by simply splashing different colored paints onto a canvas. And that's just one of a multitude of styles.

Nonetheless, there have been a few trends that some contemporary quilters are following. One was started by quilter Anna Williams. As I mentioned, most contemporary quilters only discovered quilting after their conventional training in art. By contrast, Williams learned to quilt in early childhood by watching her mother and grandmother who used left fabric scraps to make bed covers. As an adult, Williams continued quilting, but without following any pattern, hers was a more spontaneous, improvised approach. Before starting a new work, Williams would simply close her eyes and visualize the end result. Then she'd stitched together small, geometric, or irregularly shaped pieces of fabric that she'd cut freehand.

Williams' quilts have been hailed as visually complex, vibrant works of art. This so-called freestyle approach. This set her apart from the vast majority of other art quilters. When they discovered Williams' work, many quilters also began using a freer approach, following their creative instincts, rather than any standard or preconceived formula for a design. Today, art quilters, technical mastery is at a peak, but perfecting technique isn't enough to keep any genre of art invigorated to keep it moving forward. In the future, I'd love to see art quilters going even further in expressing their creativity, exploring new approaches with new materials, who knows what the next generation of quilters might come up with.