Susan Brubaker Knapp

Blue Moon River – Chapel Hill

This is one in a series of posts about artists in the Orange County Artists Guild.

Fiber art piece "What Remains" featuring skeletal hydrangea blooms on blue-purple background — “What Remains”

What is your medium? Why do you love it? How did you get interested in it?

I’m a fiber artist. I started out as a traditional quilter, making bed quilts, when I was in my twenties, and moved toward art quilts and fiber art about 2005. While my core materials — cloth and thread — are those used in traditional quilting, I often employ substances such as acrylic fabric paints, dyes, Tyvek, Angelina fibers, and water-soluble wax pastels, to transform the cloth.

Art quilt by Susan Brubaker Knapp of a sandy path to the beach, with a blue sky and green sea oats. — “Beach Access” was created using a fusible appliqué method.

Describe your process or technique.

Most of my art is realistic/representational in style, and starts with original photographs of the subjects, or my ink drawings based on them. I use two primary techniques – wholecloth painting, and fused appliqué – and often heavily free-motion threadsketch the surface to add details and texture before quilting. In wholecloth painting, I start with white cotton fabric and paint the entire surface with acrylic textile paint, then add batting and backing fabric and quilt it. In fusible appliqué, I use a special glue called fusible web to fuse fabric pieces down to build my composition. The kind of quilting I do is called “free-motion” because I drop the feed dogs on my sewing machine, allowing me to move the piece in any direction under the needle. I control the direction of the stitching, and the length of the stitches.

Tell us about one of your recent pieces.

“What Remains” is based on a photo of skeletal hydrangea blossoms in my collection of antique amethyst glass bottles. I digitally altered the photograph and removed some of the color, and had it printed on fabric. Then I added saturated color back with acrylic textile paint and added cross hatching and lines with paint markers. It is heavily quilted to make it more dimensional. This piece was juried into Quilt National ‘25, a biennial exhibition of art quilts (details at https://dairybarn.org/quiltnational/ )

Susan Brubaker Knapp on the set of Quilting Arts TV, with a quilting machine and one of her art quilts — Susan on the set of “Quilting Arts TV.”

Has your work been featured in a magazine, website or on TV?

My work has been featured in American Craft, Quilting Arts, Art Quilting Studio, QuiltFolk, and American Patchwork & Quilting magazines. Since 2014, I’ve been the host of “Quilting Arts TV,” which is shown on hundreds of PBS stations nationwide, as well as on Create TV. I interview well-known and up-and-coming fiber artists as they show their work and demonstrate their techniques. You can read more about QATV here: https://susanbrubakerknapp.com/quilting-arts-tv

Art quilt featuring the Blue Ridge Mountains, in shades of green and blue. — “Beloved Blue Ridge”

Does your work support a cause that you are passionate about?

I try to support organizations and causes that I care about as a need arises. I’ve raffled my work and offered free patterns to raise money to support the World Central Kitchen, The Trevor Project, BeLoved Asheville, and the NC Arts Disaster Relief Fund.

What can people expect to see at your studio during the OCAG Studio Tour?

My studio is downstairs in my home, and I fill it with lots of my art – small pieces and big pieces, prints, greeting cards and magnets. You can also see my sewing and quilting machines and fabric stash! I love talking with visitors, and I demonstrate my techniques when things are not too busy.