Diane Savona

Diane Savona is a fiber artist and teacher. Her quilts are made almost entirely of used materials gathered at estate and garage sales. She sees her quilts as intergenerational collaborative efforts with anonymous old ladies supplying the crocheted and embroidered cloth.

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“All of my artwork is made from recycled textiles. I know that most textile artists go out and buy blank fabric and then design on it. I start with things that have been used as clothing or embroidered or whatever and go from there. So I dug into my boxes and my bags of all kinds of old fabrics, and then I basically abuse the fabric. You wash it, and you wash it, and you wash it until it's coming apart. Some of it I took and I stitched and then washed it; and then it all kind of shrivels up on you. To be working with stuff that just has such history, such really intimate history, you're not talking history like dates written in a book. This is history that was lived. This is history that was in intimate contact with people's lives, which is what history should be all about.

It's wonderful, it's a wonderful medium. It has so much in it; it allows for so much more freedom. With fabric you can get ten layers and still have things showing from underneath. So it's just fabulous. I just get up in the morning and it's like so wonderful to do. What do I get out of it? It's the best thing in the world. I don't know how better to explain it.”