Bisa Butler's Portraiture Quilts | Brooklyn Made

an art student at Howard trying to find my way I was painting my paintings were flat lifeless they looked like every other painting in every other class I was Smith my professor told me use your fabric in your artwork so I started gluing pieces of fabric on the canvas you can imagine like how awkward it was but I found a way because I admired romare bearden and he was using collage he was fabric and paper and bits of newspaper and gluing them onto his pieces and I bought a glued collage flash painting to class and everybody was like wow I had a really good professors while my professors were straight out of the 60s Black Power movement they wanted us to infuse our work with life and not go for the European standard of painting which they would have done in schools prior to 1960 got married one week after school I had a little little daughter six months after that and was my little girl around I couldn't stand the smell of paint and I took a little quilting class where we had to make a little oven mitt sized quilt about this big and then that that was really the turnover moment cuz I was like I don't need a canvas I don't need a board I don't need paint I don't need any of those things that are making me sick I can just sew within the comfort of my home and my little girl can be right next to me I don't have to be afraid that she's gonna explain have her little fingers and hands and toes and all kinds of toxic materials we portray images of everyday life the artwork you know depicting those various aspects but through a multitude of genres so what we talked about what pieces work being that she's a portrait artist is for her to really pay tribute to the everyday person so I've always been very like calculated about what galleries do I want to be in and richer beavers gallery is that gallery I was introduced to her work some years ago by a another textile artist that was represented through the gallery we were talking on the phone getting to know each other and trying to figure out what we might do working together and I think the conversation rolled around to be represented through the gallery but more importantly having a solo exhibition at which a Beaver's gallery people who you see every day who are like royalty you can be sitting on the bus and you see somebody across from you and you're amazed that this person is so beautiful this person has a heart of gold but they're not really recognized as that and so I wanted to be down with that and so each piece each quote that I make is made from the fabrics that we wear and the fabrics that we used a lot of the fabric is older it's my grandmother's and my mother's but that fabric is irreplaceable anyway because that was their fabric and their loyalty to me from a historic standpoint I mean quilts have always been ours we were the ones who got the scraps and we had to make do with them and those particular Africans on the plantation who had those skills they were the ones chosen to make the clothes for the Masters house beautiful intricate quotes but the scraps were all that we had so quilting is very communal response has been overwhelming I mean we've had I've had a woman I had a woman coming in and actually break down in tears because one of the quotes spoke to her that strongly and whatever bisa is able to transfer you know visually is it's really easy because you can visualize I can visualize it I was personally and visualized in their mind you know artistically what they would like to do but now can you take it from here in your mind and then transfer it so now imagining attempting to do that with fabric it's time for us to stand up and be noticed and it's time for us to reclaim our ancestral legacies the fabrics that I use our traditional African fabric some of the woven by men and the Kente fabric and it's time for us to realize that we're beautiful just as we are our features don't need to be slimmed down or photoshopped and I think it's important for us to see ourselves as beautiful and strong and powerful and represented in the gallery you want to walk around and see this person looks like me

Channel: BRIC TV

Views: 45,724

Keywords: bisa butler, portraiture quilts, brooklyn artist, quilt making, bed-stuy, african american art, richard beavers, dennis magee fallon, darren augustus, african fabric, quilts, art maker, quilt, sewing, fabric, quilt (exhibition subject), african, do it yourself (website category), african fabrics, african fashion, brooklyn art gallery, art, contemporary art, nyc exhibition, bric, bric tv, brooklyn, new york, brooklyn local news, nyc

Id: lNo8jwfCpIY

Length: 5min 26sec (326 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 07 2016