Therese Quilt
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Therese May is a university-trained fine artist who began making quilts in the late 1960’s. She is known for her embellished and painted quilts, using private symbols and figures which emphasize spontaneity and passion rather than control and precision. “Therese Quilt” is a self-portrait inspired by the silk screen prints of Andy Warhol. Using a picture of herself as a template, she used rough-cut patches from a variety of patterned fabrics and then reassembled them with machine appliqué into eighty mismatched octagonal portraits. Her fabrics were chosen for their individual qualities; dominant stripes juxtaposed with floral prints for instance, so they would clash rather than coordinate. She also used old fabrics to remind her of her grandmother and days gone by, never realizing that one day this would ever be seen in public, let alone being considered an “art quilt” and named as one of “The Twentieth Century’s 100 Best American Quilts”. Her latter work has had a great influence on the embellishment movement in quilts and her “folk” quality has shown that perfectionism is not always necessarily part of good design.”
.© 1969 Therese May
