artists to watch
Virginia Spiegel Byron, Illinois The natural world as experienced by Virginia Spiegel inspires her art. Each series invites a compelling conversation about a specific place during a specific season. Even though her work is largely abstract, viewers feel the rush of river flow, ride along on the freedom flight of a bee, and mentally touch the peeling bark of a tree. Each piece invokes love of the subject matter, and leaves room for viewers to make their own interpretations. There is, Spiegel says, beauty in ambiguity. Her art quilts are evocative celebrations, filled with meaning and emotion, of a lived landscape.
26 | SAQA Art Quilt Collector
Defining moments I find fabric, paint, and paper to be “warm� media. I am mainly a maker of art quilts but also create collages, photographs, sculpture, and paintings. I made my first quilt after seeing a quilting show on PBS. The show came on before Victory Garden every Sunday afternoon, and I caught snippets every week. I started quilting because I needed stress release from working full-time while doing the coursework for my Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from the University of Iowa. I learned quilting by having fun making things. My grandmother Alice and great-aunt Clara were quilters,
