Guest Speaker: Jean Wells
Lecture: Inspired Designs
Jean has been quilting for the last thirty-nine years, writing books, and operating The Stitchin’ Post (stitchinpost.com) in Sisters, Oregon. During that time she has experimented with many different piecing and quilting techniques and worked in series that became books and lectures sharing her ideas with thousands of people. The latest “series” to become a book the summer of 2012 is Journey to Inspired Art quilting. My quilts have been juried into many of the International Quilt Festivals in Houston, the Pacific West Quilt Fest, Mancuso shows in San Francisco, and reside in private collections.
She mostly cuts free-hand, creating organic style line work. Recurring themes in her quilts have to do with natural configurations –rocks, trees, grasses, flowers, and the landscape. They are the common thread running through her mind as she works intuitively designing quilts letting the design take on a shape of its own. Nature and the world around her is her main source of inspiration. She is fascinated with line, pattern, color, and texture and how to design with these elements. In this ongoing process exploration is her theme.
You can see her commissioned quilts at the Five Pine Conference Center, Sisters City Hall, and Shibui Spa here in Sisters, Oregon; and Gateway Canyons in Colorado.
In July 2010, Jean became the 40th inductee into the Quilter’s Hall of Fame in Marion, Indiana.
Jean’s favorite quote is “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson