Fiber Art Now Instagram Feature
Recently Fiber Art Now magazine offered me the opportunity to share some of my work on their social media via their “Instagram takeover” program, #ArtistTakingOverFAN. For one weekend, I posted from the @fiberartnow account about my quilts’ meanings, inspiration, and process. I really enjoyed putting my posts together—it’s challenging but rewarding to put these thoughts and themes into words! I also loved seeing my work show up in a larger artistic context and really recommend looking at the other posts in this series; FAN highlights all kinds of fiber and mixed media art from weaving to sculpture to installations.
For easy access, and for those who don’t use Instagram, I’ve reproduced my posts below.
Hello @fiberartnow community! I’m Caitlin Pike (@caitlinpike) and I’m excited to be posting to this account this weekend for #artisttakingoverfan. I am a quilt artist based near Chicago, IL. Most of my work is strongly inspired by nature, especially the midwestern landscape, the seasons, and the sky. Using simple geometric designs and the organic texture of hand stitching, my intent is to capture not just the visual beauty of the natural world but also the sense of stillness and intimacy that comes from pausing to be present in it. My art-making motto is from the poet Mary Oliver: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
I’m looking forward to sharing some of my work, inspiration, and process here today and tomorrow. Thanks for following along!
The familiar quilt block called Flying Geese, a triangle twice as wide as it is tall, was one of the first design elements to captivate me. In fact, the first thing I ever quilted was a small pillow of these blocks. Since then this shape has found its way into my work over and over, most frequently in the unconventional form of small, separated black triangles moving across the landscapes of my quilts.
Taken out of their expected traditional context, they look even more like birds to me. I like this playful layering of meaning – the shapes signify geese because they (kind of) look like geese, but also because their accepted quilt-specific name makes it so.
Beyond flying geese, placing traditional quilting elements into less traditional contexts is something I’m continuing to explore. For this recent piece, I had fun making a variety of simple quilt blocks like sawtooth stars, pinwheels, and half square triangles, no two alike. Sewn at a small scale and sprinkled over the design like confetti, rather than pieced in a repeating pattern, these familiar shapes take on a playful, disorderly energy that evokes the swirling winds and giddy moods of early spring.
Whether or not I use recognizable traditional blocks, my designs reflect the simple style of quilt piecing that I tend toward (in contrast to techniques that make it easier to use irregular shapes, like paper piecing and applique). I have always found that constraints fuel my creativity, and I love how strongly the physical process of making a quilt informs the visual style of my work.
All my work is hand-quilted. I love the way this layer of texture can transform a design, shifting the visual weight and changing the mood. The tactile, meditative process of hand quilting is important to me, as is the individual character of the result. When I look at a hand-stitched textile, I feel like I’m looking back in time to the moment it was made. There’s an intimacy to it, a personality – I think of my stitches as being like my handwriting.
While my quilts are “about” nature, to me they’re really about the moment of presence, the self who is observing and included in the natural world. The tenderness of hand stitches and tiny embroidered touches is a way of layering that presence into the piece.
Hi! This is @caitlinpike back for my second day of #artisttakingoverfan. I call this series the Explorer Vests. Representing sky, land, sea, and forest, each one was made for a special toddler. I enjoy using these smaller canvases to explore more dense and detailed hand stitching designs.
Something I particularly love about quilting is how it combines art and utility: some of my work hangs on walls and some has been wrapped around babies. These vests are an intentional celebration of that, being sized for the age when children are starting to really freely explore the world around them. I love seeing these as precious handmade works of art – and then I love seeing them get dirty and worn to bits as their wearers grow and learn.
The American midwest shows up in my work in a lot of different ways. I see it in my focus on seasonality, in the large role the sky plays in my designs, and in my efforts to honor moments of subtle or ephemeral (as opposed to postcard-worthy) natural beauty.
With this piece I drew from an even more local source, taking inspiration from the stained and leaded glass windows that grace everything from iconic Frank Lloyd Wright structures to otherwise unremarkable bungalows in my Chicago suburb. Combining this aesthetic with prairie plants and the soggy winter-spring season makes this quilt a true love letter to my home.
From a sketch to a finished quilt. When I first started designing, I sketched with colored pencils and graph paper. I’ve since switched to using Procreate and an Apple Pencil, but my method itself hasn’t really changed – I just overlay a grid and draw freehand. (I do prefer working digitally, because it makes it so easy to resize elements and move things around without starting over every time.)
I choose colors intuitively as I design and then try to find fabrics for them, which I occasionally regret when I choose a weird color I can’t manage to match, but usually works pretty well. I also have a few favorite colors I return to frequently in my work, like the bright pinky-orange that I used for the moon in this design.
This is Caitlin Pike with my last post for #artisttakingoverfan. Thanks so much for following along with me this weekend, and thank you @fiberartnow for the opportunity to share my work here! You can stay connected with me on Instagram at @caitlinpike and at my website caitlin-pike.com. I’d love to answer any questions you might have about my quilts; please feel free to reach out!