“Blue Girl Magic” (2021), 42.5 x 35.5”, cotton, Indonesian batik
A good story does more than entertain. It pulls us in, guides us and connects us to those around us. Quilter and businesswoman Kim Alexis Newton is no stranger to telling stories. When she was a Hallmark employee, she spent her down time creating storytelling quilts. “I used quilting for 20 years to lay down what I was feeling and what I was remembering, and this was while I was managing a career at Hallmark on the business side,” says Newton.
In her current artistic practice, Newton creates fine art quilts using Indonesian batiks. These fabrics are unique because of their stamping, scrunching, dying and drying process. The overall effect forms rich patterns with undulating colors that are not uniform. Newton emphasizes, “There’s so much movement in every piece of fabric that when I use it for skin, it takes on its own personality.”
Newton masterfully constructs skin, hair and clothing out of these patterned batiks to create singular quilts. She cuts out pieces and assembles them like a puzzle before fusing them together. She explains, “I stand and look at this fabric for a really long time to try to find the right place that would provide shadowing that would look like a face or look like there would be some kind of dimension.” Her quilt “Sunday Drive” is modeled after a photograph of her mother and aunt. It shows the girls dressed for church on Sunday, complete with lace socks on their feet and pearls in each girl’s ears. The batiks form patterns that both recreate the original photograph and add new dimensions to it.
Sisters are an ongoing theme in Newton’s work, with pieces such as, “Cut from the Same Cloth” and “Chopped from the Same Tree.” These pieces were commissioned for two sisters with the sentiment that no one can know a woman like her sister. “Cut from the Same Cloth” is feminine, floral, with pink undertones in the batik. “Chopped from the Same Tree” is earthy with nature motifs.
Quilting has been a mainstay throughout Newton’s life. Her paternal grandmother taught her how to quilt when she was 21. After her daytime internship, Newton and her grandmother would meticulously hand sew and embroider a quilt for Alpha Kappa Alpha, their shared sorority. When she moved to Kansas City, coworker Kyra Hicks taught Newton the technique of storytelling quilts. An early version of Newton’s storytelling quilts, “I have to love me, before I love you,” shows a young woman looking in the mirror with the words, “The heart of a woman will never be found in the arms of a man.”
Newton built her practice for years, on and off, including shows at Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Center and Leedy-Voulkos Art Center. However, her work was always for her. That changed when she stopped working at Hallmark. Wondering how to proceed with her life, Newton went on a “walkabout” where she met with influential women, including former CEO of WW International, Mindy Grossman. Grossman was enamored with Newton’s piece “Powerful, Beautiful, Brave,” which portrays a profile view of a Black woman, chin up, eyes closed with a tear running down her cheek. Grossman insisted that it should go to Oprah. Newton was familiar with this sentiment, saying, “People would offer to buy (my quilts), and I would never want to sell them because they were like my kids.” In this moment, though, she didn’t refuse. Since she sold her first quilt to Grossman, who made it a gift to Oprah in 2020, she has sold 14 more and launched a business. Her Gift Quilts business features quilts to encourage, quilts of faith, quilts to heal and quilts to celebrate. One of the best-selling quilts, “Brave,” is based on the first quilt she sold, “Powerful, Beautiful, Brave.”
For more information, kimalexisnewton.com.
All images courtesy of the artist
