Quintessential Quilt Artist Exhibits Art Quilts at CDPL

Linda Gray grew up around her grandmother and aunts in an environment that embraced all types of crafts and artistic endeavors. One of her aunts was an elementary school teacher. She asked Linda to draw a series of posters on insects and flowers for her science class. Her aunt's colleagues were so impressed with her work; they asked if she would produce similar exhibits for them. This was the first external validation of Linda's creativity, and she was off and running. She learned to knit, crochet and use her grandmother's treadle sewing machine. She made doll clothes, table runners and what she then called 'blankets' for her dolls from scraps of fabric. She absolutely loved working with her hands. From 1981 through 1986, Linda lived and worked in Seoul, Korea. At the end of her stay, she asked each of her new friends to make a quilt block that depicted thoughts about their friendship. She gave each person a square of muslin fabric to use for the project and received about 50 blocks back. She sewed them together with sashing and created a quilt top. After returning to the United States, she realized that she had no idea how to complete the quilt. In 1996, (yes, a full ten years later) she took her first quilting class from Dallas Reed, and has been "hooked on quilting" ever since. Her style has evolved over the years, going from rather traditional to very contemporary. She learned that adhering to strict rules was not comfortable for her. The thought of going to "quilter's jail" for not having a perfect quarter inch seam or cutting a piece of fabric to an exact 1/32 of an inch, led her quickly to doing her own thing. She learned to create her own patterns and designs. She has done some fabric dying and fabric painting in the style of Phil Beaver. Linda uses a lot of beads and other embellishments to enhance her projects. Her subject matter changes with her mood, consequently, she has a wide variety of themes. She has a floral series, a jazz series and quite a few abstracts. She loves batiks, African fabrics, Oriental fabrics, Australian fabrics and black and white fabrics. Her most recent workshop was with Hollis Chatelain. In this setting she learned to paint with procion dye powder. The dying, along with threadwork techniques, has become Linda's 'new' favorite passion. In her first attempt at using this dye and threadwork process, Linda's chose a person as her subject. This was probably the most difficult subject matter she could have chosen to paint, but she was very proud of her finished product. As she continues to grow and looks back at the craftsmanship and fabric choices of her first attempts at quilting, she wonders 'What was I thinking'????? Linda has just begun to share her passion with the world. Recently, she was chosen as featured artist at a quilt show sponsored by the Indianapolis Quilt Guild. Several pieces of her work were displayed in the Indianapolis Museum of Art's exhibit in the Cultural Pavilion at Indianapolis Black Expo. From that experience, Linda was chosen to work on the IMA Community quilt, which will be on exhibit at IMA as part of its permanent collection. Linda hopes you will enjoy her work as much as she has enjoyed creating it.