Anna Buckner is an interdisciplinary maker and educator, interested in exploring the limits of existing structures within painting, language, textile patterning, new media, and emerging modes of teaching and learning.
In my artistic practice, I am interested in studying one particular quilt pattern. The pattern has many names–log cabin, log house, canadian patchwork, canadian logwork, log house pattern, ribbon patchwork, chevron log cabin, egyptian pattern, mummy pattern, roof pattern, rail fence, run-rig pattern. I’d bet the list goes on. All of these names are used to describe the same pattern–one that begins with a small piece of fabric in the center, and grows in a spiral as fabric strips are added. The pattern is ubiquitous in the American South and beyond. It is simple to make and teach using old scraps. The multiple names hint at the multiple narratives and origins of the pattern. In my practice, I work with multiple materials in an attempt to study the pattern in different forms. I usually begin by sewing a quilt top, and then stretch the quilt top over a support, causing the strips of fabric to change shape. I use recycled materials–either old clothes or fabric that has been given to me. I want to use fabrics with multiple narratives to create new stories–ones that call to mind the accumulated and complicated histories of the pattern and ones that make space for new poetic possibilities.