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Joen Wolfrom's Workroom
Joen's Life Story
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JOEN WOLFROM'S LIFE STORY
Meet
Joen Wolfrom, author of Patchwork Persuasion,
Landscapes and Illusions, The Magical Effects of Color, The
Visual Dance, and Make Any Block Any Size!
Joen Wolfrom began making quilts in 1974, after leaving a career in education to become a homemaker. The American Bicentennial celebrations were then sparking a resurgence of interest in quiltmaking Joen's interest in color, design, and contemporary quiltmaking techniques surfaced in the late 1970s.
Early in the 1980s, Joen challenged herself to experiment with new techniques and visual ideas. She developed three diverse piecing techniques that are now widely used in the quilting world: landscape log cabin, landscape strip piecing, and abstract curved designs (also known as curves-on-the-whole). She also developed the free-form freezer-paper technique often used in curved piecing.
Joen's innovative techniques and use of color have attracted wide interest, both from other quilters and from art collectors. Her commissioned textile artworks and quilts hang in private, public, and corporate collections throughout the world.
Joen is the author of four bestselling books. Landscapes & Illusions: Creating Scenic Imagery with Fabric (C&T Publishing, 1990) expresses her love of nature and her desire to capture its essence in fabric. The Magical Effects of Color (C&T Publishing, 1992) shows her keen interest in color and explains how to incorporate color illusions into fabric work. The Visual Dance (C&T Publishing) came about because design was rarely mentioned in quilting classes, and Joen had needed such training in her own early quiltmaking years. Today this book is used as a design reference for quiltmakers, teachers, and artists from other disciplines. Patchwork Persuasion: Fascinating Quilts from Traditional Designs (C&T Publishing, 1997) is a sequel to The Visual Dance, offering innovative ideas for expanding and exploring traditional block designs.
Joen's fifth book, Colorplay: Easy Steps to Imaginative Color in Quilts (C&T Publishing, 2000), will be released this fall. Colorplay will help quiltmakers select fabrics with confidence and skill, so their designs live up to their full potential.
Joen travels throughout the world to teach and lecture about innovative quiltmaking techniques, design, color, block-play exploration, creativity, and other topics, and to jury and judge quilt shows. When she's at home, she enjoys a quiet life with her husband, Dan, and three children, Danielle, Dane, and David, on Fox Island, a small, rural island off the Gig Harbor Peninsula in Washington State's southern Puget Sound. The pastoral setting offers plentiful opportunities to observe the colors and forms of nature that are so often reflected in Joen's art. She also loves gardening, landscape design, hiking, bridge, and reading.
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