I live life through feeling and color. Color is what attracts me and makes my heart sing. To create balance between color and texture I strive to make strong and beautiful quilts. While I love and enjoy creating aesthetically pleasing pieces, I feel truly most balanced when they also make a statement about the world I wish to help create. I believe that artists can participate actively in helping to shape a better world.

It is meaningful to me that quiltmaking is a woman’s art and heritage and that I am but one link in a tradition of women expressing their opinions and feelings in cloth, needle and thread.

In my fiber work I use fabric collage, raw-edge applique as well as piecing a wide variety of cloth. My highest bliss is sitting in my studio with an idea in my head, listening to beautiful music on my radio, the sewing machine humming away, and scraps of wonderful, colorful fabric all around me in the disarray of creative passion!

I am very “process oriented”, all the joy and excitement for me lies in conceptualizing an idea, then putting it together, and playing with it until it is “right”. Once I am done, I am eager to move on to the next project.

San Francisco Chinese Seventh Day Adventist Church

7777 Geary Boulevard (cross street is 42nd Avenue)

I discovered Wearable Art first in 1990, during my empty nest days.  Call me flamboyant, call me gutsy, call me Artsy,  or even too bold, but never call me boring…I love color, I love to bring excitement into a room…I could be called a walking conversation piece..  That will do just fine.

My desire to design has led me down paths that have found me designing garments Coast to Coast for Nikos Handwovens in the early 90’s.  They were called the JD Collage line…They were sold  in fine boutiques across the Country. This led to designing for several boutiques in the surrounding areas.

Then the competitive bug  hit me …I found myself entering every contest I could.  Starting in the Local area and eventually competing on an International Level…I have won over 275 Awards for my Wearable Art and Quilts.

Some of my Awards include Bazaar Del Mundo Grand Prize several times, Golden Bear, Best of Show winner at the California State Fair 4 times.  Best of Shows to include Pacific International 3 times, WilliamsBurg, PNQE, Other Awards over 80 1^st including AQS, PIQF, Williamsburg, etc. 

I have been a participant in the prestigious  Fairfield Fashion  Show and Bernina Fashion Show 5 times. My work has been published and photographed in several quilt related magazines and newspapers. 

In 1996 I discovered Art Quilts and have been  working on my techniques and designs since then.   I like to think of my work as innovative, unique,  appealing and worthy to  be in Art  Collectors Collections.

When I design a piece for a customer, I take in many considerations.. I spend time with them asking questions .  This gives me an idea of what they will and will not like…I strive to  understand their hopes and wants,  yet keep true to my own work.

I work under several categories that appeal to me, but I am not boxed in by those categories.  I use a lot of techniques on each garment or quilt, I am a multi textural lover.. My goal is to allow the viewer more than meets the eye…Sort of like the picture in a picture theory.   Complicated, yet simple in design.  I use techniques in piecing and fabric manipulations, Thread Painting, Hand beading and hand embroidery.  Recently I discovered painting on quilts add yet another dimension....then I add the final touch of exquisite quilting to put the final cherry on top…I strive for workmanship & creativity.

It has been said of my work that “Judi notes that creating balance and making all the elements work is what makes her designs work, according to judges comments.  Her quits are true works of beautiful, original art.”

San Francisco Chinese Seventh Day Adventist Church

7777 Geary Boulevard (cross street is 42nd Avenue)

San Francisco Chinese Seventh Day Adventist Church

7777 Geary Boulevard (cross street is 42nd Avenue)

Julie is one of America's most knowledgeable people on the subject of Amish quilts. 

Since 1982, she has been the curator of the Esprit Quilt Collection, long the world's foremost collection of antique Amish quilts.

Julie co-curated the last show of Amish quilts at the DeYoung in 1990 ~ "AMISH: The Art of the Quilt."

Let Julie give you some background on and insight into the Amish and their quilts.  It will make your trip to the next Amish quilt show a richer experience.

Julie and her partner, Jean Demeter, have made a short, six minute slide-video on The Esprit Collection and Amish Quilts of Lancaster County, PA.  You can see it NOW at the home page of Julie's website:  The Quilt Complex.

Julie Silber is on Facebook

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San Francisco Chinese Seventh Day Adventist Church

7777 Geary Boulevard (cross street is 42nd Avenue)