Suzanah Furtick 2018
Shopping for cloth takes me back to the feeling of childhood, where everything was new, to be discovered. I love the sensation of walking down the rows of fabric, running my fingers across the bolts. It reminds me of how it felt as a child to run my arm around the circular racks of soft chiffon blouses hanging in department stores or climbing quietly between slippery organza dresses into the center of racks while my mother shopped.
One early memory from my life is reading a book called "The Touch Me Book." On the cover it had a dog, with a fuzzy cut-out of fabric on its stomach. I can still remember how it felt to snap the red rubber band inside and the sound it made. Every page had a different texture to touch and feel: soft, spongy, rough, sticky, bumpy, and springy.
In my opinion, art, whatever the form, should not just look good, it should feel good. There should be mystery, curiosity, and longing that goes beyond color and shape. The texture of the surface of a painting, sculpture, or a quilt should awaken something childlike in the viewer that triggers an urge to reach out and touch it. So when I look for fabric, I am looking for colors and textures that evoke feelings, memories, and desire.
When it comes to color, I can spend hours clipping swatches and comparing colors. The search for hues and shades of fabrics reminds me of what it feels like to gather leaves in the park during autumn. Every project like every autumn feels brighter and somehow, always new.
Here are two photographs I took, years apart: one is the shopping cart of fabric for the Frida Quilt, and the other is a photograph I took of leaves in a gutter that stopped me in my tracks during a jog. Color is a big part of my memories, artistic visions, and dreams- and when I create art in any form, I am flipping through the color memory index in my mind. My hope is that viewers will feel something-- even if they don't know why. I want to create an experience where they cannot help but feel.
Suzanah Furtick 2013