During the 1960s and 1970s, the quilt medium became a format for original artistic expression, especially in New England, Ohio, and California. This quilt art movement was linked with the development of craft schools and textile art programs, and with the hippie penchant for "authenticity" in hand work. By the mid-1970s, members of the feminist movement were co-opting quilts and other types of domestic crafts in political statements that eventually contributed to the birth of postmodern art. The present book chronicles the beginnings of quilts as contemporary art in the United States, written from the point of view of the artists themselves. While hundreds of books and articles were consulted in my research, the heart of my text has been developed from primary sources: lengthy surveys and phone interviews with more than fifty artists, or their families in the case of deceased individuals. My book discusses the exhibitions, publications, teachers, and colleagues that influenced a new direction in American art. Most of these artists are flourishing today, continuing to work in the quilt medium. Pioneering Quilt Artists documents a uniquely American art form, reported by the artists who created it.

This book functions as a foundation on which further analysis and theoretical insights can be built.