Coulter Fussell
CODEBREAKERS / KEEPERS
© Coulter Fussell.
Away from the hustle and bustle of metropolitan art hubs, Coulter Fussell has carved a place for herself in rural Mississippi to reimagine discarded materials into untraditional quilts. She combines bits and pieces donated to her studio into unexpected arrangements that reveal new narratives about motherhood and childhood nostalgia while honoring the histories embedded in the objects. Although a descendant of a long line of quilters, Fussell trained as a painter and only began quilting later in life by repurposing her old clothes, the most accessible and cheapest materials. Soon, people in town started dropping things off at her doorstep.
With a self-imposed challenge to use everything that arrives democratically and without a hierarchy of value, her quilts have become more textural and sculptural over time to accommodate things like photographs, picture frames, ironing boards, and skateboard decks. Through her collaging practice, Fussell aims for material grafting, resulting in work that might look like a quilt or painting, but that is neither. In her trusted hands, the old becomes new, the lost is found, and castoffs are valuable again by extend- ing the lives of material remnants as carriers of our stories.
B. 1977, Columbus, GA
Lives and works in Water Valley, MS
WW83
Coulter Fussell, His & Hers Diptych, 2024, Donated textiles. Courtesy of the artist, photo by R & Company.