Val Poitier

Her artworks have been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country. She completed her first bed quilt in 1971. Her professional art training began in 1981 and ten years later exhibited her first textile art works. The past 30 years of teaching and lecturing guided her towards her favorite process, stitching together her take on an historical event. The focus is mainly on the part Africans in the Americas played. The inspiration is stoked when viewing or touching wooden sculptures. Her years of mastering various crafting techniques help push past the limits of traditional quilting. Her textile art works include mixed media, collages, portraits, works depicting human rights issues, often set on a landscaped background. To augment the process you will find her choice of colors and stream of conscious writings are the building blocks used to draft or sketch the work. Look closer and you will be able to detect her use of a wide range of sewing and fine art techniques. The result has been that her writing and stories, in cloth, have been captured in books, shown on television, exhibited in museums, galleries, and her favorite, in person when she teaches or gives lectures both online and in person.