Sandra Johnson: Artist Reception

Please join us on Saturday, July 27 from 6pm to 8pm to meet Hello Stitch Gallery artist, Sandra Johnson.

Sandra Johnson began making quilts in 1975. Inspired by simple lines and traditional quilt blocks, you can still see the traditional foundations in her work. In 2014, she started working with repurposed materials after deciding to dedicate herself for one year to only using resources that she currently had on hand.

Working with a stack of her son’s old blue jeans, she began deconstructing the items of clothing he once wore and reducing them back to pieces of fabric. Seeing the beauty of each individual piece, she fell in love with the idea of using the different wear patterns and variation of colors as “prints” in her quilt work. Once the word got out about what she was doing, people started giving her their jeans as well and her source material grew.

Johnson loves everything about working with denim. The colors, texture, weight, and how the light reflects off the fabric. Denim reminds her of visiting her Great Grandmother’s farm when she was a child and seeing the overalls her great uncle always wore. It reminds her of the great struggles faced by African American men from the time of slavery to today. Working with the wear and the weight of this tough fabric, she elevates an everyday material to a place of respect. A respect that people who originally wore that material were not given, in the past or today.