Paper Quilt Collage

Paper Art Quilt Collage – Artful Recycling

San Francisco Chronicle
Comics and Pink Section

Sunset Magazine cookbook – 1966

These quilt collages are made with paper products that are gradually being phased out of our everyday lives. Familiar items that have long been a part of our day to day routines and are now slowly being replaced with digital technology.  In the near future we will no longer reach for maps, telephone books, magazines, sewing patterns, cook books – we will mostly rely on reading books digitally or researching information online.

The collages are designed using the basic patterns found in traditional American quilt blocks such as The Lone Star, The log Cabin, The Pinwheel. These block patterns all have historical roots and have inspired many quilt variations in the last 200 years. Paper quilting brings the art of traditional fabric quilting into a creative new place. It honors traditional fabric quilting and provides a nostalgic place for us to remember paper which has also been The Fabric of our Lives.

Originally quilting was not thought of as an art. It was a practical opportunity for reuse and recycling of fabric. Quilting was done to save money and for a social activity in the home.  Today fabric quilting is primarily viewed as an art or a craft. The production of fabric quilts is mostly done by machine. – another example of technology taking over.

Click any image to start The Lone Star quilt block Slide Show

Five years of my art career were spent as Creative Director for an international fabric company that catered to the quilting industry. This introduced me to Quilt Making and I have now witnessed its transition from the homemaker’s necessity into the world of Arts and Crafts.