Introducing Karen G. Fisher of Tucson

I came to quilting as an art form just a few years ago, but I had a lifetime of art-making and sewing as a background to build from.  Like many women, I made a quilt for my granddaughter, fell in love with the medium, and let it grow from there.  Before quilting, my main medium was ceramics, and I feel some of my quiltmaking style has grown out of my ceramics work in terms of building a surface with color, pattern, and texture.  I also love to use commercial tone-on-tone fabrics for the visual sparkle they give a piece, and I always enjoy the hunt to find the groups of colors I want for a new quilt.

Influences in my quiltmaking include my ceramics background and astronomy.  A whole series of quilts I’ve made use a triaxial color blending arrangement (And Then There’s Red, Dancing in Miami, Late Bloomers: Flowers from Dresden, Twiga III) that is based on a glaze-blending chart.  Night Quilting with Hertzsprung and Russell is based on a star classification chart.  The quilt has just finished touring with IQA Special Exhibits. In both cases I enjoy taking something very structured and giving it a bit of a twist.  A viewer doesn’t need to know ceramics or astronomy to enjoy my quilts’ visual impact.

I’ve been really delighted with the awards my quilts have won in Tucson, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Chicago, and Columbus, Ohio.  My work has also been shown in Paducah, Kentucky, Houston, Cincinnati, Denver, California, the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden Colorado, and the Museum of the American Quilters Society.  My work has been published in American Quilter Magazine and The Quilting Quarterly.  As an active art quilter I am always adding to my skills—I’ve taken workshops with Carol Taylor, Katie Pasquini-Masopust, Mary Lou Weidman, and others.

My formal art training includes a BFA in sculpture from the University of Arizona, plus a BFA in Art Education, and an Earth Science teaching endorsement.  I’ve just returned to work full-time as a science and art teacher at a Tucson charter high school, and I’m hoping to include quilting in the art curriculum.  I’ve been active with the Tucson Quilters Guild for the last six years, and I have completely enjoyed the friendship and inspiration I’ve received from this wonderful group of women (and men!).