Today we’d like to introduce you to Lorraine Woodruff-Long.
Lorraine, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
BIO
Lorraine Woodruff-Long is a self-taught San Francisco quilter with a primary focus on color, improvisation, and recycled/repurposed fabrics and, additionally, is passionate about creating quilts as political and social commentary. She is familiar under her quilting name, @quiltinginthefog.
Raised in Houston, and educated at University of Texas/Austin, Lorraine served in Peace Corps Kenya and afterwards moved to California where she fell in love with San Francisco and never left. Following a career in marketing and advertising, Lorraine worked in the nonprofit sector while raising two city kids with her architect husband before springboarding into a fiber art practice prompted by the pandemic.
Lorraine’s work has been juried into art exhibitions at the de Young Museum/San Francisco, the California Heritage Museum/Santa Monica, the Sanchez Art Center/Pacifica, Muzeo Museum & Cultural Center/Anaheim, TAG Gallery/Los Angeles the Drawing Room/San Francisco, and the San Francisco Women Artists Network Gallery. She has received numerous awards for her quilts at local, national and international quilt shows. Quilt exhibitions include the International Quilt Festival/Houston, QuiltCon, the Pacific International Quilt Festival, Visions in Cloth, and Quilt San Francisco among others.
She currently teaches quilting at City College of San Francisco Extension and to quilt guilds around the country.
Lorraine is a member of the San Francisco Quilt Guild, Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA), East Bay Heritage Quilters, ArtSpanSF, Northern California Women’s Caucus for Art, San Francisco Sew-and-Sews, Modern Quilt Guild and has been a volunteer with the Social Justice Sewing Academy Remembrance Project. Her work is included in the 2021 book, “Stitching Stolen Lives: The Social Justice Sewing Academy Remembrance Project.”
ARTIST STATEMENT
One of my earliest childhood memories is feeling compelled to touch and run my hands over bright, shiny colorful plastic buttons on a store rack. The same fluttery thrill bubbles up when I see collections of color in nature, art and everyday objects. It is this feeling that I seek to capture in my textile art and quilts. Using mostly solids and repurposed fabrics, I create improvisational quilts with pulsing energy, color and movement for the viewer. My passion in the fiber art of quilting is utilizing vivid, electric color and shapes to create an immersive polychromatic experience in addition to using textiles to express my political and personal beliefs.
I am inspired by the historic legacy of women quilters, weavers, and textile artists before me who have poured their creative energies into meaningful, useful and beautiful works of art for their homes and families. I pay homage to the quilters of Gees Bend, the works of Rosie Lee Tompkins, and the simple beauty of Amish quilters. Other sparks of inspiration include the intellectual and mind blowing statements and graphic art of Barbara Kruger, Judi Chicago, Yayoi Kusama, and Jenny Holzer.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I came into becoming a fiber artist/quilter later in my life, following a career in marketing and nonprofit management.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a fiber artist/quilter and teacher.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Color, improvisation, using art as political statements
Contact Info:
- Website: https://quiltinginthefog.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quiltinginthefog/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lorraine.woodruff.long
Image Credits
Lorraine Woodruff-Long