full interview_bisa butler_1.mp4
Bisa Butler [00:00:00] My name is Bisa Butler and I'm an artist who makes quilted portraits.
Speaker 2 [00:00:06] Tell us about quilts. What are, what do you like about quilting?
Bisa Butler [00:00:11] Quilts, to me, came at a moment when I really needed them most. And that fits, because quilts were primarily made to keep people warm. And they were a necessity. The quilt form that African-Americans have used traditionally came from necessity and also poverty, using scraps and leftover pieces. And for me, quilting came in grad school when I was at a inflection point where I was trying to decide if I would actually be a professional artist or not. And I made a small quilt in class. And that moment made the rest of my life for the next 25 years happen. So quilts for me came. At a need as well, but not a physical need, but more emotional crisis. And the answer was the quilt.
Speaker 2 [00:01:19] So quilts, your quilts and I guess maybe all quilts they use a lot of different kinds of material. Tell us about that.
Bisa Butler [00:01:29] Quilts in my community, a lot of times, were made from leftover fabrics. People did not have a lot. A lot of historians have traced the original quilting in the United States, the black quilters being in the South, and many of them still living and working in Gee's Bend, Alabama, where the quilts would be made from old clothing. That it would be a community event when you would have a quilting bee and everybody who was at the quilting be would submit or sacrifice a few pieces of cloth which is maybe all they had until one full cloth made of these patches could be made. And that quilt would be adequate for maybe one family but then the next family in the community would also have a quilt made from all these donations. It was the original crowd sourcing.
Speaker 2 [00:02:33] So what's your personal, how do you think about the material you work with? Do you have any kind of emotional connection with the stuff you work?
Bisa Butler [00:02:41] I have an emotional tie to my fabrics because I started out as a student with very little money and two small children and my mother and my grandmother coming to the rescue and giving me their remnants. And that gave me a new life and a new perspective because I could use these dressmaker fabrics that they had. Lace, chiffon, gabardine. I could use fabrics that were traditionally made for clothing in my artwork, and I would see remnants of their lives. I would a print that I remembered from the 70s. My mother was a Muslim and she used Muslim oil, which the smell, that rose smell of jasmine lasts for years. Like even my fabric now that was hers still has a scent. The fabric I use in my quilts are dressmaker's fabrics, and when I sew with them, I think of my mother and my grandmother all the time. The other fabrics that I'm really partial to are African print fabrics, and my father is from Ghana. So when I use African fabrics, I'm thinking of home and I'm think of of my dad and my aunts and the fabrics that grew up looking at. So every time I'm creating a piece, I have both sides, my mother's side and my father's side with me as I'm working.
Speaker 2 [00:04:18] That leads me to my next question, which is, when we think of materials, there's obviously the physical, the physical quality of whatever the material is. But can materials have more than just a physical quality?
Bisa Butler [00:04:32] I believe they do.
Speaker 2 [00:04:33] I believe materials.
Bisa Butler [00:04:35] Sorry. I believe materials have more than just their physical qualities. Materials, texture, the ability to touch, touches, touch is another sense. And the more senses you involve in experiencing a piece of artwork, if you see it visually, then you can feel it. And then also when I spoke about the scents in the fabric itself, all these things evoke memory and emotion. So I feel that as a quilter, I have an advantage to when I was painting, everything that I painted would have been flat 2D, even if you add texture to it. It wasn't the same as tapping into other people's personal memories. If I use or create a portrait of an elderly person and I use all different pieces of men's suiting and gabardine and pinstripes and paisleys, I don't need to say what I'm implying about this person. Those fabrics are gonna resonate with a lot of people who recognize them. If I create another portrait, and I use all tie dyes, and... Tie dyes, and iced dyes and day glow colors. I don't need to say that this person's life was very different than the other quilt that I made from these suiting materials. We know them already and I think that gives me an advantage because when I'm presenting a painting, sometimes people feel like they can't judge that painting or that they don't understand it. Sometimes they feel they don't have a right to. They'll say, oh, I'm not educated, or I don't know art. But you'll never hear people talk that way about quilts. My quilts seem to, from what I've seen, appeal to very small children, like two, three years old. They like it. And also, very elderly people like it, people in the middle. So I'm touching all sorts of people who are sophisticated or not very sophisticated at all, but the people feel comfortable with the materials because they are wearing them and they've seen them their whole lives. I do believe that there is a value to fabrics outside of what they're made of. Because we put value on things. For instance, I was gifted a box of Louis Vuitton and Gucci remnants. And these came directly from the manufacturer.
Speaker 3 [00:07:39] What is that by the way? Hair dryer. Hair dryer?
Bisa Butler [00:07:47] Really bad.
Speaker 2 [00:07:52] Alright, so you can just pick it up from where you said you were gifted some Louis Vuitton.
Bisa Butler [00:07:58] I have this box of Louis Vuitton and Gucci remnants, and one thing I noticed touching those fabrics and sorting through them, they are made with more threads, more thread count, and finer quality of thread in the first place, but essentially it's just fabric. But we put that cost on it when you see the authentic Gucci, the authentic Louis Vuitton. I don't know how much it would cost to buy that box, but putting it on the figures that I'm creating, and I have a particular piece in my show at Jeffrey Deitch with a young man, I put a Gucci shirt and tie on him in Gucci socks because I felt that I wanted to give that individual in the photograph the best, and we look at these labels as the best. He was dressed in a three-piece suit. His afro was immaculate. His beard, I could tell, was cut less than an hour before that photo was taken. It was so sharp that he deserved nothing better than this Gucci fabric. And then I also have hand-woven fabrics from Ghana that are woven with silk and cotton, and they're primarily woven by men in... The Ashanti region, that fabric can be hundreds of dollars a yard because it's done in such small quantities and takes such a long time to make. And then I recently got into buying expensive rhinestone fabric. That same quilt that I made with the man with the Gucci, his afro is made from this Austrian crystal lace. And that fabric was about $750 or $800 per yard. I got a small piece of that fabric. I couldn't afford the whole yard. Those Austrian crystals really do shine better than the typical glass. And I wanted, again, this figure to have the best.
Speaker 2 [00:10:21] Are you always looking at fabrics and judging things and figuring out how to use them creatively?
Bisa Butler [00:10:29] I'm not always looking at fabrics and thinking how I can use it creatively, but if I see something that catches my eye, for sure, I'll go on a fabric hunt, and so then I'll be in that mode. I live real. The closer it gets to...
Speaker 2 [00:10:53] Alright, that's the path.
Bisa Butler [00:10:55] When it gets to four, it's going to be...
Speaker 2 [00:10:56] I think we're going to have to wait for it to finish. I'll go in a fabric on too. Yeah, just pick it up from when you said I'll go. I go on fabric. OK.
Bisa Butler [00:11:15] I go on fabric hunts, I live about 30 minutes outside of New York City, and I'll just take days while I'll go up and down in the garment district, and picking out fabrics that just might strike my eye. I'm not thinking about any particular artwork, I'm just thinking about things that I might use one day. That can be helpful, or that can also be a detriment, because it means that I end up with too much fabric, and if I end up too much, then I donate it to the school where I used to work.
Speaker 2 [00:11:47] So. You work in, I mean, quilting is ancient, it's old.
Bisa Butler [00:11:55] It is very old.
Speaker 2 [00:11:58] But you're getting it, and you're not the first person, but you're get it on the walls of galleries and so on, okay? It's made, something's happened, okay. How can, how did you transform? What was the transformation that happened?
Bisa Butler [00:12:15] I think quilting is moving along and we are seeing quilts on the walls and galleries and museums more. One of the soldiers, the quilt soldiers. The main one, I would say, is Faith Ringo. She's...
Speaker 2 [00:12:45] That's it, yeah, that's it.
Bisa Butler [00:12:48] That's New Jersey Transit. Faith Ringgold, to me, has led the charge of opening doors for the fiber artists, black and white, not just in this country, but internationally. The quilters of Gee's Bend, as I mentioned before, they are the great, great grandmothers and pioneers and the artists who held this quilt who held the art form together throughout generations. And I'm like the great great granddaughter of these people. I think that my goals were always to be an exhibiting artist in galleries and museums. I didn't grow up in a quilting community where the goal was to make a quilt for your bed because you needed to be warm. I didn't grow up with the idea that a quilt was a utilitarian object because I don't come from a family of artists. I come from a families of academics and I don't come from family of quilters. So I discovered quilting while I was in college studying artists like Elizabeth Catlett and Lois Jones and Romare Bearden or Ernie Barnes. Even Jean-Michel Basquiat, I wanted to be like them. So I was raised up with the idea. I'm also somebody who was born in the 70s. My mother was a feminist and a very much of an independent thinker. I was raise with the ideas that I would be an artist. So I never had this, I was never in the box where I thought. I'm a crafter, which is not an insult, but it's not what I had in mind. I didn't even know what that word was supposed to mean, a craftor. You were either an artist or you weren't. My goals have always been clear. Even when I was like three or four years old, I said I wanna be an artist when I grow up. And I did get voted artist of the month in preschool at Sundance Elementary School. And I remember that, and I remember how proud I was to see my little name up on the wall, Bisa. I didn't understand what a month was though, when it changed the next month. I remember coming in and being horrified that my name, I couldn't read, but I knew that didn't say Bisa anymore. My mother had to explain it to me that it wasn't the artist for life. I was an artist emeritus. But I think everything is perspective and timing. I'm born now in a time when I'm lucky enough that the world is open to what I'm doing. But around year 2001 to 2005, when I first started making quilts, I heard so many nos and got so rejected by gallerists, black and white. I was told that my quilts do not suit or fit into the African-American quilting tradition, so therefore, what are they? I was also told that artwork didn't fit into my tradition of portraiture because it was made out of cloth. So many resounding no's. I mean, I used to cry, but that was what I did best. So I didn't have a choice. I couldn't be like, okay, well, I'll just make this other kind of quilt, or I'll paint like you, because I tried those things. They didn't look good. They weren't for me. So I had to only do what I could do. For almost 20 years, I just sold my artwork to friends and family. I sold my artwork.
Speaker 2 [00:17:09] Perfect, just freeze.
Bisa Butler [00:17:15] I was selling my artwork to people, not just friends and family, but people who were willing to take a risk, and it wasn't a big price, just something nice for their house. And that sustained me for a long time, working with independent art galleries, community American women have supported me for a long, long time. Before the mainstream acknowledged what I was doing.
Speaker 2 [00:17:49] So you mentioned that you're actually didn't come from a family of artists. A lot of people we've, a lot of artists we've talked to did come from, you know, there was somebody in the background who was an artist. But you've also taught. Yes. And we talked about this on the Zoom. You know, is it possible to teach creativity to kids, to young people? And we also talked about the... The fact that young kids seem to be more open than older kids to that. So just let me just... Go back.
Bisa Butler [00:18:20] Go back into the... I do believe that creativity can be taught, or it can be emphasized, and it can be practiced. I think the children are already naturally creative. If you get in front of a classroom of three-year-olds and give them each just crayon and paper, they're going to go crazy with it. But when you give high school kids a blank sheet of paper and a crayon, I've had them get really upset with me, because I'm saying if I give it to them in no direction, they would get upset. Well, what do you want? What do you what me to do? Well, I don't know what to do. They feel the crushing weight of. Insecurity and self-doubt. And so there's something that happens in between there, from being three to being 16, where they lost the freedom to just create. And I believe that it's two-fold. Teaching students to create and to flex their imaginations and to problem-solve can make them stronger thinkers, period, in any field that they're in. I hope, and it's my belief, that they'll be able to see their way out of problems, because they'll able to think outside of the box. There's another thing that's happening when you create though that you have a sense of freedom and autonomy and confidence that feeling that you can make something and you don't need to feel self-conscious about it that you had a right to create whatever it is that you want and there's something that happens in between there that tells children that they're wrong that they should not that they didn't do it right, doesn't look nice. I think that that is a problem in schools, I think it's a problem with how we're educating because when I'm in front of a classroom I feel like I have something to share but the children also have something share. They're not coming in there clueless, they know things and it's very important to have two-way communication so that I can come out of that room richer and so can they.
Speaker 2 [00:20:49] What about the idea of just play, just people being free to play and that we get out of the habit as we get older?
Bisa Butler [00:20:56] I wish we did have classes like experimental studio. I wish that we did adult centers where you just go and there are just things there and you can just do things with them. My mother used to give me the junk drawer and there was usually glue in there and like thumbtacks or whatever, but she would just let me make whatever I wanted with the junk drawers. That was to keep me busy while she was sewing. But she always praised the things that I made, and I remember her exclaiming that they were good. Now, I don't know if they were Good, but I know that their encouragement made me feel good. And I think that we would all be better if we were allowed to flex that play muscle, flex their creativity, and be free and make something new.
Speaker 2 [00:21:54] When you're done with a piece, what does it feel like?
Bisa Butler [00:21:58] When I'm done with a piece, it feels like you just finished a really long, like, 100,000-piece puzzle and you put that one last puzzle piece in. I feel like a sense of relief. I feel happy, especially when the piece looks the way I want it to. It feels very, very good. I feel satisfied because I know that my job is done. I think of the quilt that I'm making, but I'm also thinking of the individual that I am portraitizing. And I'm thinking about the photographer who took that piece and that I was doing the piece justice. So if it looks good, I feel, for instance, with my Gordon Parks inspired pieces, I would feel that Mr. Parks himself would give me the nod of approval. I feel a tremendous sense of relief that I did not destroy the beauty of this image in first place.
Speaker 2 [00:23:08] Anybody else? Yeah.
Speaker 4 [00:23:09] I have one question and one thing I would just love if you could say again.
Speaker 5 [00:23:17] Cheers.
Speaker 4 [00:23:18] We're doing a big section about how materials inform art, how different artists use them differently. So here's the question. Do the fabrics you choose inform the work, or does the work inform your choice of fabric?
Speaker 2 [00:23:38] You should initiate a response.
Speaker 5 [00:23:41] Let me think about that. Just the fabric I use and form the work.
Speaker 6 [00:23:50] Which way does it go? Who's talking to who?
Speaker 4 [00:23:55] Yes. Do you choose fabrics because you're thinking about a particular image or do you sometimes see textiles and you say and they speak to you, this needs to become something, this group of colors and textures need to become sometimes.
Bisa Butler [00:24:19] I should look at you.
Speaker 2 [00:24:21] It's a ventriloquist there.
Bisa Butler [00:24:24] When I'm working or getting ready to create a piece, I do start thinking about my color palette and the colors I'm going to select. I'm sorry, I don't know if I...
Speaker 2 [00:24:41] We're pretty good.
Speaker 7 [00:24:42] I'm like, do I stop or do I go?
Bisa Butler [00:24:46] So I don't go... When I am beginning to think about a new piece of artwork, I start studying that photograph and studying the person's expression. I study the atmosphere around them and their body language and I'm trying to theorize, what are they thinking? What is the mood of this person? Do they have a twinkle in their eye? Do they look like they're kind of slick with a mouth? Does this person look very innocent? Does this personal look very wise? And based on that color can inform me, I mean, based on, that expression can inform me about what colors I'd like to choose. If I choose a lot of sunny yellows and oranges, maybe I feel like this person looks very cheerful and lighthearted. If I use a lot of pale blues, maybe I'm saying I feel this person is calm. So that's my initial thought. What color is the mood of this person? And then the fabrics that I choose, for me, it's the figure itself or the subject that is telling me what fabric should go with. If this person, for instance, I did a portrait of Harriet Tubman and I knew that Harry Tubman. Had to go on clandestine journeys back and forth between the South to the North with multiple people and family members sometimes late at night. And I knew that Harriet had to be somebody who was very stealthy and she had to very calm under pressure. I read a story once that somebody approached her on a train, it was daytime, and she to pretend to read and they didn't look at her too hard. But her newspaper was upside down or whatever. She really didn't know how to read. She didn't get caught, but she had to carry off this calm demeanor, which let me, that informed me that I need to use colors that are kind of deep and soothing and subtle and that don't pop. But then on the other side, I read that Harriet Tubman. If you were one of the people she was helping to free, and you decided you didn't want to go anymore, you were scared, that I heard that she carried a gun and that she would threaten you, you know, be free, you're gonna be free or I'm gonna kill you, basically. I don't think she actually shot anyone, but they must have felt the fear that she was. And she was very passionate about her belief. That God spoke to her and told her, not only to free people, but which way to go. So I portrayed the other side of Harriet with a red. Not that much orange. I used like scarlet and blood red and fire engine red and tomato red, but I wanted her to have both sides. The other fabrics that I chose helped me tell the story of Harriet hiding in the woods late at night. With people with guns and dogs out to kill her and all of her charges. And then Harry, the warrior, who's leading charges and going on missions for the Union Army and saying, be free or die. So the fabrics that I'm choosing have to go along to support that story.
Speaker 4 [00:28:43] Thank you very much.
Speaker 6 [00:28:44] Yeah, just to follow up a little bit, you've spoken about this before and you spoke about it again, but could you just distill the process that you have, you might take a photograph, just so that we have that. Sure. Basic, basic kind of...
Bisa Butler [00:29:01] If I were to break down my process into steps, like I did for my classroom, the first step is really important. Who are you going to make a portrait of? Who is this person? Did you want to choose somebody like I have many times from the National Archives, an unknown person who you feel has an interesting gaze? Is this person a relative? Is this? Somebody who admires a personal hero. So that's really important. Who? And then after that. Blow up the photograph into the size of whatever it is I'm making. And at that point. And it's a long train to...
Speaker 2 [00:30:05] So how about if we say, I'd start with the photograph, because we're gonna get all the other information.
Bisa Butler [00:30:10] So just say it quick.
Speaker 2 [00:30:14] Yeah, it's a little, yeah, we just want, like I said, it's the headline. This is the CBS category version. Okay. Okay, we do have to get a little bit of that.
Bisa Butler [00:30:22] Okay, so the way I create artwork is I start with a photograph, which is very important. Who is it that I want to portraitize or immortalize? I blow the photograph up to the size of whatever it is that I'm making. And three, I sketch. That's so annoying. We're getting too close to four o'clock. It's just like, it's, all right.
Speaker 2 [00:30:48] You could just say Anne Street. Bye.
Bisa Butler [00:30:54] No, and then I sketch using a regular black sharpie.
Speaker 2 [00:31:01] My name is from Utah, I was like your third friend. Sorry, sorry. I hate to do this, okay.
Bisa Butler [00:31:08] So just start from the top. I'm just going to say it quick, because another train is coming right now. When I create an artwork, first I start with selecting a photo. That's very important. And secondly, I blow the photo up to whatever size quilt it is that I want to make. The third thing I do is trace over the light and dark shapes. I always use black and white photographs because they allow me to be more imaginative with my own color scheme. And when I'm sketching over a photo with a Sharpie, It doesn't need to be precise. It just needs to be what I see.
Speaker 7 [00:31:52] That's the sound of it. It was great. That was very useful.
Bisa Butler [00:31:59] Number four is my selection of fabrics. What is it that I see in the photograph and what do I want to emphasize? And number five is when I actually start cutting up fabric and laying them down right on top of my photograph. They're not glued to the photograph, but they're laid down in place and I've either tacked it with pins or glue. That process selecting fabric, I don't know if I should go or not.
Speaker 2 [00:32:33] You know, keep going. Let's just wait for the siren to go by. That process of selecting sound.
Bisa Butler [00:32:39] He's been going by a long time. Okay. At the fifth stage where I'm cutting fabric and placing it, almost like you are making a topographical map. I start with a base of color. That's the emotion. Let's say it's red fire, and everything else is coming on top of that. That process of cutting and selecting for the figure itself. Can take about two months because that can be very specific. What is the gaze in their eyes? Are they half open? Are they bright-eyed? Are there any differences? We don't have the same. What's the isometric qualities of the face? I'm looking at fine details to try to get an impression of that person's face. It doesn't need to be exact, but it has to look like them. After that six week to eight week process, then I sew my quilt. I load it onto my long arm quilting machine and it takes me about three days to sew it and then it's done.
Speaker 4 [00:33:56] I have one quick question, a slight pivot. So you've talked about music in your work. You've talked the fact that your work evokes music.
Bisa Butler [00:34:10] Yes.
Speaker 4 [00:34:11] Tell us about that. Is there an overlap in their disciplines when you work?
Bisa Butler [00:34:18] Music has been a big part of my artwork from the beginning because my husband is a DJ. We share a studio and I met John when I was in college. I was 19, I think he was 20, and he was a big DJ on campus. So our whole lives together, music has been integral. What he plays and listens to, I'm also listening to. So it's important for me to infuse the music into my artwork because I'm listening to him spin records and I'm making a visual type of artwork. But I realize that music is a very strong language. You're able to communicate emotion very quickly and you don't need language to do it. You don't even need to be born in the same era as that person and know anything about their background. To understand what they are saying in the music. Because my daily life is infused with this powerful art form, which is music, it forces me to get better at what I'm doing. Like, I'll tell my husband, the name of my show with Jeffrey Deitch is The World. The World Is Yours. That is a Nas song. And we were listening to Nas one day, and I said to him, I want my quilt to look like this song makes me feel. And that's not an unfamiliar thing. I've said that before. The music will move me so much that I'm like, how do I harness that? So lately I've been stitching lyrics into my artwork. So hopefully when people look at the artwork, they'll be reading those stitch lyrics and they'll realize it's a song and they might start humming it. I have a quilt in the exhibit called You're All I Need based on the Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell song and the lyrics are stitching it. And you know, you're all I need to get by. So when people are looking at that quilt, at the couple, I'm hoping that they hum a little bit or they're thinking of it, and that just helps me. Because that song is so beautiful and poignant about you needing no one else in this world but that person. And that song, it's not just for play. Tammy Terrell passed away not long after that. She had an incurable brain tumor and she collapsed in Marvin Gaye's arms on stage. So he wasn't her lover, but he was her good friend. And He was what she needed to get through in that moment. And I want my quilts to embody some of that beautiful love and friendship.
