MONTAGUE — Dr. Susan Kruszynski was the featured speaker July 2 as the Friends of the Montague Library continued their Summer Book Talk series at the Book Nook & Java Shop.
Kruszynski spoke about her two published books on the art of quilting. A substantial crowd of crafters and art appreciators alike visited to hear Susan describe her craft, the places it's taken her, and her journey to becoming a published author.
Susan has been creating art quilts for over a decade now, after being inspired by the award-winning work of Ann Loveless in 2013’s ArtPrize competition. By that time, Susan had been sewing for most of her life, beginning in 4-H as a teenager. She was proficient in traditional quilt making by then, but had never realized the wide scope of fiber arts until seeing the large-scale fabric murals of Sleeping Bear Dunes in person. Not long after, Susan retired from her academic work as a literacy specialist teaching throughout West Michigan and took up the craft in earnest.
Only a few short years later, Susan’s art quilts saw their own ArtPrize debut in 2017 to much success, as she ranked in the top 25 of the competition. Her work was, like Loveless’, nature-inspired, and drew from her passion for books and children’s literacy by taking on the form of a storybook. The quilts illustrate a story - the rights to which were granted to Susan by the University of Michigan - of personified trees, with the message of showing goodwill and “paying it forward” to others.
Susan introduced the presentation as a merging of her passions “loving on fabrics and loving books." She featured the storybook and accompanying quilts during the book talk, inviting an audience member to show off the quilts as she read through the story, affecting a gentle rhythm and different voices for each tree. The audience was given the opportunity to see Susan’s ArtPrize quilts up close and in breathtaking detail while the story progressed, which was no trouble for Susan, who says, “As an educator, it’s always fun for me to share my craft.”
Despite art quilting being her retirement project, Susan continues to teach, though now as an instructor in the art. She travels all over the country to spread her love of quilting and mentor others of all skill levels. Her talent of enrapturing a class was on display for her presentation. The audience was invited to peruse other examples of Susan’s work at their tables, write their questions on note cards, and participate in a prize drawing at the end of the talk. At one point, Susan likened the different types of quilting to various varieties of chocolates, with art quilting being like “dark chocolate… maybe sea-salt caramel dark chocolate,” because they are her favorites. To illustrate her point, Susan was kind enough to disperse chocolate amongst the audience.
While there are many different styles and forms of art quilting, the craft sets itself apart from long-standing traditional quilting of geometric patterns, taking on a more organic and representational aspect - just as much displayed artwork as functional blankets. As Susan describes it, “art quilting is painting with fabric.” She went on to describe how art quilting is an aspect of the greater field of fiber arts, a “big umbrella” which encompasses knitting, crocheting, sewing, and embroidery.
“Art quilting is just one of those fiber arts under that umbrella,” she said.
Susan went on to point out features which are unique to her “form” of art quilting, such as being collaged, raw-edged, and using adhesive backing on the fabric to keep the various pieces stiff and manageable while sewing. She also made sure to point out her artwork can function as "actual quilts,” as they are complete with a backing fabric, batting in the middle, and the design on top.
While the audience was more than interested to learn about the art itself, Susan recognized the presentation was a book talk and spent some time sharing her journey to becoming published, which began in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I don’t do ‘nothing’ well,” Susan explained, and her restlessness led her to search through craft books for the names of their publishing companies, which she then searched to inquire about their submission process. Two of the companies had open proposal submissions for authors, and it was Fox Chapel Publishing who responded to her messages. Susan humorously recounts, “Maybe they were hungry for authors because it was COVID. They emailed me, and I emailed them back, and they emailed me, and I emailed them back and they must’ve said, ‘Woo, we’ve got a live one here.’”
Susan’s proposal was simple. By 2020 she had already been creating art quilts for six years, largely self-taught as there was little instruction on the craft accessible for readers. She wanted to create an instructional book which would allow interested beginners a place to start. Over the next couple months, Fox Chapel helped Susan tailor a proposal to fit the company’s mission, with both parties finally agreeing to a two-book contract on art quilt instruction. The journey from proposal to publication was 18 months of writing and photography, with guidance from the publishers. Susan described the latter task as the most challenging.
“The picture-taking was the hardest part for me because I’m not particularly a photographer,” she said.
She eventually made it work with an Android camera, a lightbox and a lot of “learning along the way.”
The two books are a Starter Guide to Creating Art Quilts, which is described as “an accessible starter guide to creating landscape-style art quilts,” and Art Quilts Made Easy: 12 Nature Inspired Projects with Applique Techniques and Tutorials, which intended “for beginners and experienced art quilters alike.”
While the photography took some trial and error, Susan had no trouble breaking down the craft into easily digestible step-by-step instructions, which she drew from her past experience.
“My biggest claim to fame is that I taught kindergarten once,” Susan laughed.
Kindergarten aside, Susan had years of instructing adults of all skill levels art quilting, some of whom were in the audience, many with their own work to pass around. Despite Susan's beginning the presentation focusing on her journey through art quilting and publishing, she was more than happy to sate the audience’s curiosity on the technical aspects of her craft, sharing what materials she uses, her brainstorming process, and how she persevered and thrived in a craft she had primarily taught herself.
Quite simply, Susan answered: “I never know what I’m doing, because I always had to figure it out myself. And that’s probably my strongest point, is that I never know what I’m doing, but I’m not afraid to give it a try.”
