(“In the Savannah Shade” is an art quilt piece by Ann Baldwin May. Photo by Tarmo Hannula/Pajaronian)
SANTA CRUZ — Fifteen art quilts by Santa Cruz artist Ann Baldwin May are currently on exhibit at the Santa Cruz County Building in Santa Cruz and will run through July 27.
A former president and secretary of the Pajaro Valley Quilt Association, Baldwin May got her start with two years of sewing classes she took in high school. Following that she launched into making a flurry of bed quilts over the years, starting in 1974 in Huntington Beach.
“I stopped counting the quilts after 300,” she said.
The quilting eventually spilled into a series of art quilts, which are art compositions made from fiber pieces quilted together. Her works include abstracts, underwater fantasies and her best-known works inspired by California’s natural world.
“I’m motivated by the materials and how they play together,” she said. “That’s my inspiration.”
This art quilt is one of 15 such works by Ann Baldwin May currently on exhibit at the Santa Cruz County Building. Photo by Tarmo Hannula/Pajaronian.
Baldwin May said she procures a lot of her material from the group known as FabMo, an all-volunteer-run organization that provides unique, high-end materials to artists, teachers and others for creative reuse. A statement of the website, FabMo.org, reads: “These exquisite textiles, wallpapers, tiles, leathers, trims, etc. are from the design world, and are usually not available to you at all except through a designer. FabMo makes them available on a donation basis, diverting about 70 tons a year of them from their otherwise destination — the landfill.”
Baldwin May, who taught in elementary schools for 30 years in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, said the FabMo group typically sets up a table at Harvey West Park in Santa Cruz about four or five times a year. She entered her first art piece in Pajaro Valley Arts’ 2010 exhibit titled “Los Pájaros.” Her work was titled “Great Blue Heron at Dusk.”
“Under the Shady Tree” is an art quilt by Ann Baldwin May. Photo by Tarmo Hannula/Pajaronian
Baldwin May has thus far completed about 150 art quilts and has also been shown at the Blitzer Gallery in Santa Cruz, in Chicago and San Francisco.
“I’m all color, texture and movement; that’s what I have to do,” Baldwin May said. “It takes me to another place. It feels very comfortable to build on skills that I already know, that I am confident in doing.”
Baldwin May said she will be taking part in the annual Open Studio Art Tour in October where her artwork will fill the entire lobby at the Santa Cruz Art Center, 1001 Center St. She also participates in First Friday, an informal, monthly art tour, rain or shine, where artists and galleries open their doors to the public.
