COCA will present Generating the Future, an exhibition of contemporary art quilts by multi-media artist Edna Patterson-Petty of East St. Louis in the Millstone Gallery at COCA, 524 Trinity Ave., November 30, 2012 through January 13, 2013. The exhibition features old work and new, none of which has been shown in the St. Louis area before.
An opening reception in the gallery will be held 6 p.m. Friday, November 30 with artist’s remarks at 6:30 p.m.
“My art is more than art quilts, it’s an emotional journey filled with pleasant memories,” Patterson-Petty says. “I enjoy the entire creative process of telling a story with the fabric. My ideas come to me in dreams and from talking to people or listening to a favorite song, and so on. In essence I draw ideas from my everyday existence.”
Her art quilts have been exhibited in galleries nationally and internationally in venues ranging from the St. Louis Art Museum to Antioch College in Los Angeles. She has been exhibiting her work since the 1980s, with a number of solo shows before this COCA exhibition. Her art quilt “Road to Redemption” was created to commemorate Barack Obama’s presidency and was displayed in Washington
during his inauguration.
She has received fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council and the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission. She co-authored the book Quilt Designs and Poetry Rhymes and her work has also been featured on the cover of African American Review, American Art Therapy Journal and other publications.
She is a lifelong resident of East St. Louis and a graduate of SIU-Edwardsville, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art and a Master of Fine Arts in Art Therapy.
Her work as a quilter started with helping her mom recycle the family’s worn-out clothing into fabric pieces for a bed quilt that her mother made by hand. “She taught me how to remove waistbands from skirts and pants and square off the fabric in preparation for the quilts,” Patterson-Petty says.
When her grandfather purchased her first sewing machine, she was able to teach her mother how to use it for sewing. “But it was not until I was an adult with four children of my own that I enrolled in art school and learned how to enhance fabric with dyes and paints,” she says.
She continues to pursue new techniques. “I love to experiment with the arts and include found objects, photo transfers, etc., to see what works and what needs work,” she says. “I learned early in my creative world to go with the flow, just let things unfold, and to trust my instincts.”
Though her techniques and materials evolve, she knows the source of her art and it is unchanging. She says, “I know that my creative ability is of divine inspiration, because I dream art, I feel art, I get excited when I am around art, and through my creations I reveal my internal world.”
“Generating the Future” by Edna Patterson-Petty runs at the Millstone Gallery at COCA, 524 Trinity Ave., November 30, 2012 through January 13, 2013 with an opening reception 6 p.m. Friday, November 30 with artist’s remarks at 6:30 p.m.
