color, color, color everywhere. In a room where a cow and chickens once lived, against a backdrop of white
walls, bright light, and clean space, Busch creates award-winning art quilts and dazzling kinetic sculptures, commissioned by hospitals, municipal and state governments, and places of learning.
Unlike functional quilts, Busch’s art quilts are, well, art—made of painted, cut-up, sewn-together pieces, some as long as 24 feet. They are bold and moving, fabric landscapes of “spatial ambiguities.”
For 18 years, Elizabeth Busch was an architectural designer—first, with Eaton Tarbell and then with what is now WBRC, both in Bangor—where she practiced what she sees now as her ability to “envision space.” Busch’s work has been the subject of many articles in regional, national, and international publications, and has been juried into exhibitions from Tokyo to Rockport. Most recently, she received the Surface Design Award at the Schweinfurth Art Center in New York. She teaches workshops worldwide, including Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and all over the U.S.
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I see you’re teaching at Haystack [Mountain School of Crafts] this summer.
Yes, it’s my absolute favorite place to teach. It’s what opened the door for me. Back in the early ’80s, a couple of friends convinced me to go to the very first Open Door session [for Mainers only]. I didn’t think I could go. I thought it was only for somebody already way up there. I went, and I was off and running.
Was it difficult getting your work out there in the beginning?
Yes, and no. I’m a painter by education [Rhode Island School of Design] and I love to sew, and one day when I cut up one of my paintings—because I didn’t like it—and put it back together again, kind of collage-like, and decided to sew it, the magic started to happen. But when I tried to have the work included in quilt shows, I was told it was art, and when I submitted to galleries, I was told to try the quilt shows. I couldn’t win, but I loved what I was doing. That was what was important to me.
So what shifted your visibility?
The turning point was when I found an ad in the back of a magazine, maybe American Craft, for a national embroiderers society exhibition. I submitted a large painted and quilted piece, and it got in the show. A reviewer wrote an article about me for what was then a new magazine called Threads. That opened all kinds of doors.
In what way?
Well, I had no preconceived idea of what a traditional quilt was. My family had never even owned a functional quilt. We needed a blanket—we bought a blanket. So when I incorporated things like painted batting sticking out the edges, I had no idea how much attention they would attract. Also, as a result of that article, I received my first request to teach.
Where was that?
At the New Brunswick Crafts School, in Canada. I said, “I’d love to, but what would I teach?” and the woman said, “Why not teach what you do?”
And teaching has been and continues to be a significant aspect of your life and who you are as an artist.
Yes.
What is it about teaching that continues to attract you?
Convincing people who have been somehow stopped along the way, that, yes, the desire they have to be creative is real and that all they have to do is listen to it—that’s what is amazing to me, being witness to that light bulb going on.
How do you approach your work?
The whole process of creativity for me is about following and not pushing. When I started doing spheres [in her quilts], I didn’t know why, but it felt right. And the painting on black—I didn’t know why I was doing that, either. It’s the same thing I tell students: If it feels right, do it. If it feels uncomfortable and right, all the more reason to do it. And never, ever listen to the doubters, including the doubters in your own head.
When did you start making kinetic sculptures?
Well, here’s an example of a door opening and you could pay attention or not. In 1989, I was a finalist for a space at the State Museum in Augusta—where no fabric could withstand that kind of heat and light. A year before that, I had pulled off some deer netting from my raspberry bushes. I thought it looked interesting, so I wove some watercolor strips and painted fabric into it and stuck it on the wall—sort of to germinate. It sure wasn’t anything right then. When I figured out what to propose—and I really almost pulled out—it consisted of cut-up strips of theater gels that come in a jillion colors woven into “deer netting.” I received the commission.
Do you do anything specific to continue to stretch outside your comfort zone?
In a hands-on kind of way, I play with new materials. Here I have some pieces of painted Plexiglas embellished with gold leaf. Right now I’m not too crazy about them, but I leave them out—like I did the woven deer netting from the raspberry bushes. And this flashing thing isn’t working either [she points out some pieces of painted, bent metal].
There’s that hardware store again.
Exactly. I love the hardware store. It’s about being open to whatever will work. And what I’ve learned is that, consciously or not, I like breaking rules. To defy gravity is an intuitive challenge. Can’t do anything with that flashing? Watch me.
You’ve said that your work is about “spatial ambiguities.” What do you mean by that?
With the quilts, I’m manipulating the surface, I’m pushing space, I’m adding layers so there is an ambiguity about the space that is real and the space that is a visual anomaly. See here—I like doing that [she points to what appears to be a three-dimensional quilt]—pushing space so that some aspects float behind and others pop in front, but it’s all on one plane.
And the sculptures?
Well, what do you think?
I feel like I’m a participant in the piece. I’m seeing, I think, through it into some other dimension. I’m headed somewhere.
Good. I like that. Yes.
