Special Offer: See Susan Else on the Quilt Show for Free

When Ponies Dream, 2013, collaged and quilted cloth sculpture, 28″ x 31″ x 37″, photo by Marty McGillivray.

Quilt National artist, Susan Else, whose engaging 3D fiber sculptures have been exhibited in Quilt National twice (Bingo! in 2005 and Nothing to Fear in 2009) is currently featured on The Quilt Show, an on-line program with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims.  For a limited time, this episode will be available for free viewing to readers of Quilt National Artists news.

Susan’s episode, Enter the 3^rd Dimension with Quilted Sculpture, began airing on October 28, 2013.  In this episode, you’ll meet “quilt sculptor” and teacher Susan Else, who made the leap from “flat quilts” to one-of-a-kind, three-dimensional quilted works and has never looked back. After showing a selection of her incredible quilted sculptures, Susan demonstrates how she uses felt, fabric-wrapped floral wire, and couching to create dimensional leaves, helps Alex construct a 3-D diorama, and shares some excellent tips for adapting your cutting tools to accommodate physical limitations.

See below how you can view this episode for free.

Quilted, 3D, and in Motion

Susan Else treats cloth not as a flat surface but as a wild flexible skin for three-dimensional objects. Her work began in 1999 and has developed in tandem with the art quilt movement, but she is one of the few artists making sculpture from this medium.

Detail of a Susan Else teapot with a mechanical tiger. Photo by Leslie Bixel.

Recently Susan’s work has added yet another dimension: Motion.  Her series of commissioned Teapots incorporate intricately sculpted dioramas that move when the lid is lifted.  And her current solo show, “Tilt-a-World” includes a carousel sculpture where “the sign flashes, the lights are on, the calliope plays, and the human “horses” go round and round and up and down.”  “Tilt-a-World”   is now on view at the Peninsula Museum of Art in Burlingame, California October 20, 2013 through January 26, 2014.

Susan Else sculpture will also be part of Radical Elements, Studio Art Quilt Associates, Cafritz Foundation Arts Center, Montgomery College, Silver Springs, Maryland.  The show opens in April 2014, and will then travel.  See the SAQA website for more information on Radical Elements and its venues.

Susan Else, photo by Marty McGillivray, used by permission.

Find out more about Susan Else and her artwork at her website, www.susanelse.com.