In art quilter Susan Rienzo’s bright Vero Beach studio, a new composition is tacked to a wall-mounted pinboard that she uses “just like an artist uses an easel.”
While that work in progress is fixed, other completed works are far-flung: One is currently on display at a Melbourne museum; two more just returned from a European tour.
Rienzo, who studied graphic design at the University of Georgia and apparel design at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, works in a raw-edged, free-pieced format. “Raw-edged” means that she does not press under the cut edges of her fabric before piecing it together. That gives the finished work a spontaneous, “edgy” look.
Lately she prefers to cut her fabric with a pair of pinking shears. In addition to their characteristic zig-zag appearance, “pinked” edges resist raveling.
“Free-pieced” means that her strips and the blocks of fabric comprised of them do not conform to any set size or pattern; the artist composes the elements that will make up the art quilt as she goes along.
On this day a rectangle of several blocks of strip-pieced fabric hangs on the composing wall, a sparkling harmony of patterned yellows on yellow and pale blue backgrounds.
Appraising the arrangement with a critical eye, Rienzo says, “I may go back and rework these pieces, I may rip things apart and rework it, or make a whole new piece. It all depends.”
She hasn’t come up with a working title for the quilt, but “it will relate to sunshine in some way,” she says.
Since Rienzo’s move to Florida from Long Island in late 2004, all of her art quilts reflect the tropical light of Florida.
“In my older quilts I used a lot of black with color, and that was my palette,” she says. “When I came to Florida, I said, ‘No more black.’”
A case in point is Rienzo’s “Sunshine State of Mind,” a quilted depiction of six blazing suns that is currently on display in “Florida in Fabric II” at the Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts in Melbourne. The show runs through Aug. 23, but Rienzo is already working on her submission for “Southern Accents,” the center’s next juried exhibition, in 2015.
“How do I top myself?” she asks. “When you are doing your art, and you do a really good piece, you’re like, ‘Oh my goodness, what’s next?’ It is a challenge.”
The deadline for entering the show is Jan. 15, 2015, and she isn’t too worried – yet. She began “Sunshine State of Mind” in August 2013 and finished it just in time for last January’s deadline. That show was open only to Florida artists, but “Southern Accents” will present even stiffer competition: art quilters from 11 states across the South will vie to have their works included on the exhibition’s checklist.
Where the Ruth Funk Center is concerned, competition does not faze Rienzo. She is happy that the textile art museum will benefit from the attention its broad call for entries will bring.
“I think the word is going to get out what a fine show it is,” she says referring not only to the quality of the work submitted but also the professionalism with which it is exhibited.
Rienzo can afford to be gracious; after all, a couple of her works just returned home from a months-long European odyssey. They were part of a competitive exhibition titled “Deux: Two Ideas, Two Inspirations, Two Complementary Quilts.” The show was organized by the International Quilt Festival Chicago, under the aegis of Studio Art Quilts Associates (SAQA). After its inaugural exhibition in an art quilt convention in Rosemont, IL, in June of last year, the show was divided in two, with half of the quilts touring the US and the other half, including Rienzo’s quilts, touring Europe. There were stops at quilt festivals in Alsace, France; Vicenza, Italy; Prague, Czech Republic; and Girona, Spain.
The show was premised on the idea of hanging two quilts by the same artist side by side, thus inviting viewers to compare the composition and technique in each.
“There’s two of them, that’s the point,” Rienzo says, as she reaches into her storage closet for her entries. With a delicious rustle of tissue paper she unrolls the quilts and spreads them, one at a time, on her studio worktable.
“A New Day: Sunshine Dreams and Memories” measures 34 by 45 inches and was created in 2008; “Sunshine Memories II,” created in 2009, measures 48 by 47 inches. Although the titles imply a narrative, the quilts are nonrepresentational works composed of raw-edged strips of cotton fabric in both batiked and commercially printed designs. A line of machine stitching through the center of each strip attaches it to the backing fabric.
“(I used) different backgrounds, overlapping contrasting strips on the base color and pattern. Your eye sees it all,” she says, explaining that you lose sight of the individual trees in her richly textured and patterned forest of colors.
It is tempting to guess at how many strips went into the making of the larger of the two quilts. A thousand, maybe?
“Oh, easily,” agrees Rienzo. She once started counting the pieces in one of her creations but stopped herself short, thinking, “You’re a little crazy. Don’t worry about it.”
The artistic influences that go into her quilts are numerous as well. While Rienzo’s love of art quilting is stimulated by fiber artists (including the friends she has made in the Melbourne-area groups “The Dirty Dozen” and “Seams Unique”), her aesthetic inspiration comes from late 20th century painters. Throughout her house the walls are decorated with reproductions of works by a range of artists, from Hans Hofmann to Roy Lichtenstein, Peter Max to Keith Haring.
Australian Ken Done, known for the child-like whimsy of his paintings of Aussie landmarks, is a particular favorite of Rienzo’s; so is Vero Beach’s Francis Mesaros, whose Caribbean seascapes, accreted by a methodical layering of paint in row upon row of subtly shifting color, resemble Rienzo’s quilted strata of cotton strips. It was after seeing one of Mesaros’ shows at Gallery 14 that she began the art quilt “Tropical Moments.” In that pictorial work, a sea of varicolored blue strips floats an appliquéd scene of palm trees, sailboats and setting sun.
“After moving here, I was happy all the time,” says Rienzo, who admits that while the Southern climate appeals to her, she had one concern about her new home.
Were there quilters in Florida?
The answer, she has found, is a resounding “yes.”