WATER GROUND: River Raft Quilts by Coulter Fussell

April 21 - June 24, 2023

“This continuing series of sculptural quilt-works act as open-ended narrative vessels for stories of personal escape and tales of dream-seeking. The archeology of deciphering donated and trashed textiles for use as my sole material leads the way in terms of story, but themes recur: the physical labor of Craft, uncovering human connections across time and distance through personal stories and the infinite promise between mother and child. Drawing from a childhood growing up in a river-town that owes its existence to cotton and textile mills, I sew my stories and envisaged stories of others as outfitted rafts and guide-maps, set to journey on an imagined river rolling through valleys amidst the Southern economic fallout’s reign upon the natural world.”  – Coulter Fussell

Coulter Fussell was born and raised in Columbus, Georgia, an old textile town. She is the youngest family quilter, hailing from multi-generations of seamstresses and quilters. Her work uses discarded and donated textiles as her sole materials. 

Fussell is a 2021 Museum of Arts and Design Burke Prize Finalist, the Jane Crater Hiatt Fellow and winner of the 2021 Mississippi Museum of Art Biennial exhibition. She is a 2019 United States Artists Fellow in Craft, the 2019 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Visual Arts Inductee, and a Finalist for the 2017 SouthArts Southern Prize. Fussell has exhibited across the U.S. and lives in rural north Mississippi with her family.

Featured Image: Courtesy of the artist