Frieda Anderson

Frieda Anderson creates contemporary art quilts and one-of-a-kind wearables. Her specialties include fusing, creative machine quilting, and designing elegant and original garments. She also serves as Dean of Technology for The Chicago School of Fusing. In addition, she is one of the founding members of the Professional Art Quilt Alliance, a service organization dedicated to the advancement of the quilt as art and the quilt artist as a professional.

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“When I first started making quilts, I started making traditional quilts, but very early on I realized that I needed to make my own designs. I wasn't happy with the structure of traditional quilts because they are very rigid. So I started expanding my own designs and I haven't looked back.

I need a lot of alone time. I need a lot of time to reflect. I get a lot of flack for this, but my dog George and I go for walks everyday. There's a little 22-acre woods about a block from the house and I get a lot of inspiration in the woods with George, walking in the woods. It gives me the opportunity to reflect on what I'm working on. Certainly, I get inspiration from being up there. A lot of the images that are in my quilts come from those walks with George, and it gives me that space and time that you need to process, to be creative.

You almost have to have several pieces going at once. Anyway I think you do, because a piece will let you take it so far and then you need to think about it. I mean, sometimes you just get inspired and it comes together, but usually I design on the walls that are in the room. And so I'm putting pieces up and I'll get a piece to be at a certain spot and then I need to think about it for a while. And that's one of the good things about walking with George is when I go out there I can ruminate what I'm working on, and oftentimes it may sit for a week or two and I'll work on something else. And usually I have something that's up on the wall and something that I'm quilting so it's a progression. And a lot of times I have things triple-stacked on the wall, putting things up, putting more stuff up, putting stuff over that. Having a blank wall to work on is rare.

I think that my work is getting simpler. I'm leaving a lot more out of my work. I'm finding that I'm really simplifying what I'm doing and very happy that I am.”