Artist Statement

Karen S. Musgrave wants to change the world using quilts. She does this with her art, teaching, lectures, curating, writing and with her group Crossing the Line: Artists at Work (CLAW).   She was the first person to curate an exhibition of quilts from Gee’s Bend that traveled outside the Untied States to Georgia, Armenia and Kazakhstan. She curated a joint exhibition of American art quilt and Kyrgyz patchwork in Kyrgyzstan. Her quilt They are our sisters, our daughters was included in the exhibition Rastros y Cronica: Women of Juarez at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. Her art can be found in many private collections and she has exhibited and taught internationally. She served on the national boards of the Alliance for American Quilts and the Kentucky Quilt Project, Inc. As the key consultant for the documentary Why Quilts Matter: History, Art and Politics, she served in many roles. She has written many articles and contributed two essays to the book Quilts Around the World by Spike Gillespie. Quilts in the Attic: Uncovering the Hidden Stories of the Quilts We Love (Voyageur Press, 2012) is her first book.  Karen lives in Naperville, Illinois.