Joe Cunningham, artist

Interviewed by Elizabeth Townsend Gard

Date December 2018

He is an artist.

Here are some videos:

Topics

the quilt frame

Charlotte Jane Whitehome (embrodiery)

Bicentennial: value of quilts

"Bed" after Rauschenberg - 2013" Making quilts out of painted canvas (video) (cut up and quilt canvases) (to make a point)

"I'm not doing it for anyone else. Just for myself."

Who's shooting the video?

Long-arm - FMQ? Computerized?

"To me, the last thing I'm interested in is what [the quilt] looks like."

Handquilting in silence: "It makes me feel wealthy. It makes me feel like the luckiest guy in the world."

Craft in America - Gee's Bend and Mary Ann Pettway; the narrowing of the idea of Gee's Bend quilts

You ask: "Would you mind if some guy in San Francisco makes something similar?"

"Sitting around the frame and quilting on each other's quilts."

"Men in quilts are guests"

The Joe Retreat

Traveling schedule

Acquiring fabric: "I get as much of it by chance."

How long does it take to make a quilt?

Economics of being a quilt artist

What do you see as our current history? Role of history in quilting

NY Times Articles about quilting

favorite techniques: freehand piecing, bias tape applique and etc.

Stopped here.

What does it mean to be a quilt teacher?

The equipment you use: relationships with the companies?

Visiting guilds - tips, thoughts

Having.a family

The backing - white backings?

The use of bias tape

#1 question he gets when he is hand quilting: "so how do you get into the middle?"

The Ballad of Joe the Quilter

Art world