Sandra Sider
Email: sandrasider@mac.com
Web Page: http://www.sandrasider.com

Born in Alabama in 1949, Sandra Sider was raised in Western North Carolina in a family of longtime Appalachian quilt makers. After moving to New York City in 1979, she began to combine photographic techniques, especially cyanotype and photo transfer, with machine-quilted constructions. Since the mid-1980s, most of her work has focused on art quilts incorporating photography, as she has personalized and developed various approaches to images in textile assemblage. Formal training in studio art was via classes and workshops at the School of Visual Arts and Manhattan Graphics Center. Her art quilts are in several public and private collections; they have been published nationally in books and art journals. Sider's essays on art quilts usually are published by Fiberarts Magazine. She founded the Fine Focus biennial competition and co-founded the new biennial Quilt 21: American Art Quilts for the 21st Century. The artist is a professional member of Studio Art Quilt Associates, Manhattan Quilters Guild, Art Quilt Network/New York, and the Surface Design Association.

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Step Right Up!

Step Right Up!
40"w x 53" h
1999

Selected for Pieceworks: Art Quilts at the Sedgwick 2001, a national juried competition on view March 30-April 29. Catalog available on CD-ROM.

 

 

Step Right Up! (detail)
detail

The image here is of High Bridge, an historic New York aqueduct. Step Right Up! consists of a single photograph showing the Manhattan end of the bridge, with steel doors sealed shut and spikes projecting to the sides to prevent access to the bridge. Replicating the one photograph in both positive and negative images, and in mirror image, I transformed this forbidding structure into an inviting garden pathway, inviting the viewer to "step right up" and enjoy this marvelous historic monument.

Materials and techniques: photo transfers on cotton, embellished with hand embroidery and paint, machine pieced, polyester batting, cotton backing, machine quilted. The purple stamp-painting was done with the hiking boots I wore while photographing High Bridge.

 

Red River

Red River
35" x 35"
1999

Published in American Art Quilts: Quilt 21 / 2000 and touring nationally with the Quilt 21 exhibition, 2000-2002 (as juror's quilt), catalog available from Q21 /The Brush Gallery.

 

 

Red River (detail)
detail

Red River is reminiscent of trading blankets from the American West, an important commodity during the days of westward expansion. The actual Red River, which rises in north Texas, flows more than 1000 miles through Arkansas and Louisiana into Mississippi. This quilt uses the name of the river to commemorate the struggles of 18th- and 19th-century America, during which times many of our rivers ran red with blood.

Materials and Techniques: Batik on silk, dye, photo transfers from 16th-century maps melted into silk, silk appliqued onto canvas base, reverse applique, paint, hand embroidery (double blanket stitch around edges), wool backing, machine quilted.

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