Bisa Butler

One could say Bisa Butler is a fiber artist and they wouldn’t be wrong. Her work is made of quilted textiles. But that’s kind of like saying Jackson Pollack worked in paint. Bisa Butler does extraordinarily vibrant quilted portraits of African Americans. Some are famous, like Frederick Douglas, but most are unnamed men and women who happen to have had a photograph taken before they were forgotten by history. But Bisa Butler has brought them back to us in life-scale images that stick in the mind and claim our attention and respect.

On this episode, artist Bisa Butler talks to Debbie about her career, and about how making a quilted portrait of her grandmother led to an artistic breakthrough.

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