TB • OUTSIDE THE BOX
PIECE BY PIECE
TRAVIS SEWARD EXPRESSES HIS CREATIVE IMPULSES IN MODERN QUILTING by Libby McMillan Henson • photography by Will Crooks
O
nce considered a grandmother’s pastime, quilting is now a creative outlet for many contemporary artists. One of the most surprising of these might be Travis Seward, known in arts circles for his volunteer work on behalf of The Warehouse Theatre, the Greenville Center for the Arts, and other initiatives. The frenetic pace of Seward’s career as general manager at USA TODAY 10Best increases the appeal of his own serene quilting studio, on the third floor of the historic Hampton Pinkney home he shares with Wade Cleveland. “I come from an entire family of makers,” he explains of his upbringing in, Crawfordsville, Indiana. “My mother sewed all of her clothes, and I got the scraps and started making things.” Seward was running a sewing machine by age six. Making things was like breathing in his family—everyone just did it. Before long, he was riding his bike to the fabric store to spend money earned on a paper route. The enamored ladies at the shop loved helping their eager young customer. Between
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them and his high school art teacher, Crawfordsville’s Outstanding 4H Student was introduced to the world of fiber arts. Saturday art classes helped Seward land a scholarship to the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, where he studied fabric design and structure. An internship with Milliken brought him to Greenville, where he designed automotive fabric before transitioning to the technical side of textiles. Eventually, Seward’s career pivoted to digital content, and quilting became a creative outlet. He started discovering people on social media who were making quilts and forming online groups. “I was no longer working in a vacuum,” he says. “One group taught me the techniques of piecing and putting quilt blocks together, the fundamentals for all the different styles, using someone else’s pattern.” It wasn’t long before Seward started quilting seriously, making his own patterns and joining the online group Men Who Quilt. “[Quilting] allows me to de-stress and chill out, using the other side of my brain after work,” admits Seward. The longtime maker then discovered the Greenville Modern Quilt Guild, a group of teachers, pattern designers, published authors, and award-winning quilters (whose group quilting
