Emily Parson

Emily Parson is an award-winning quilt artist from St. Charles, Ill. In her pictorial quilts, everyday objects become special larger-than-life images. She also is the very first inductee into The Chicago School of Fusing.

Emily Parson Web site»

“I saw an exhibit of Chuck Close's work and he said that somebody had asked him about his large pieces and he said ‘I never wanted to have an exhibit where people would say hmm ... is there a Chuck Close in this exhibit?’ He really wanted to make a statement. For me, I love the impact that really big quilts make.  With doing the flowers,  I'm not really trying to capture the flowers in a photographic way, I want to capture their personality. So to have a really huge wall of flowers, to be viewing that and have the flowers as big or bigger than you are, really helps capture the personality of something really bold or really exciting.

It is very challenging physically with the quilting and a lot of people ask me what's the trick to machine quilting this huge thing, because it's a lot to fit under a sewing machine. A lot of people ask me if I have a big long-arm sewing machine. I just have a 20-year-old Bernina, that I use for my quilting, and it's a lot of shoving, rolling, getting it under there any way I can. It is more challenging on my shoulders and my back, too, so I try to be as ergonomic as possible when I'm working doing that.

And I'm inspired by my friend Laura who has said to me, ‘you're a professional when you keep working even when you don't feel like it.’ So I know I have to keep working even if I'm not inspired. You can't wait for that to hit. You get in the studio and work when you can, when you have energy. So that's what I do.”