Artist Profile: Heidi Parkes
Before Heidi Parkes was born in Chicago, IL in 1982, her grandmother organized a collaborative family quilt to commemorate her birth. Based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin since 2015, her quilting and mending celebrate the hand, and her works tug at memories, shared experience, materiality, and embodiment. Engaging in the worlds of art, quilts, mending, and social media, Heidi is an advocate for the domestic realms, slow stitching, and mindfulness. Find her on Instagram and YouTube. She is the 2024 Pfister Hotel Artist in Residence, and a 2005 graduate from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Could you share some of your process with a project? What sparks the start of something, and how do you know when it is 'finished'?
The start of a project often feels like a perfect storm. There may be an exhibition or a class I'm teaching that creates a unique opportunity. That combines with my possessing the right materials and an interest in working with a particular technique. Finally, I need the right conceptual and visual interest. If it's a Diary Quilt, I like to reflect on my current goals, and the things I hope to manifest in my life, so they can become a part of the work. I love using repurposed textiles with stories behind them to incorporate material meaning, and hand piecing, hand applique, hand embroidery, and hand quilting a work for many months and hundreds of hours is a special thing to commit to at the start of a project.
I'll know something is ready to move from quilt top into the quilting phase when there's just enough missing that I still have 'something to do' or resolve with the quilting. Then, a work is done when it answers the question that I've set out to ask. Staying curious is the magic that I use to stay committed to my pieces, and there's a feeling of something being resolved, or having led me to the next question when I discover that a quilt is complete.
What other mediums have you explored? What made quilting and textiles feel like the best medium for you to explore and create how you do?
My first creative love was ceramics. I have great memories of sculpting and glazing tiles in my grandma Mimi's garage in Santa Fe, NM. I was a high school art teacher for 9 years, so when I studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), it was my business to take classes in all the departments that I could. I emerged loving fibers the most, but I'm also skilled at drawing, painting, performance, computer graphics, photography, collage, printmaking, woodworking, and more.
I fell head over heels in love with quilting in September 2013, and I changed careers to be a quilter quickly thereafter. I love the portability, the lack of mess, and the frictionless experience of starting and stopping- there's nothing to unwrap, no lids to remove, everything can stay just as it is on my table, or it can tuck back into a little pouch in my purse if I'm sewing on the go.
How do you manage your time and creative energies among the many facets of your work, from teaching online to teaching in-person, from mending to quilting?
This is a tough one and a question that I often ask of other artists! I'm lucky to have an assistant who helps me with website updates and advocates for my long-term goals when I see her weekly on Zoom. I also keep a split-page to-do list with mental jobs on the left, and physical jobs on the right. I try to notice that both kinds of work are getting crossed off my list throughout each month. I also admit to the monthly and yearly cycle of my work. Sometimes I do computer work all month, other times I get to travel around Japan teaching and sewing for two weeks. I don't live in a reality with daily commitments for equal time on social media, email, computer work, and sewing, these things get attention in waves. Finally, I feel committed to letting my sewing practice yield to my life. I love that I can sew in meetings, at my aunt's house, in the car, on airplanes, and even while I'm gathering with the students in my yearlong Quiltmaking course. This evidence of a quilt being made in bits when and how I can adds so much richness to my passion for Diary Quilting, and for collaborating with the everyday.
What are 2 to 3 exhibitions, concerts, books, spoken word events and/or films you're hoping to check out this summer in Wisconsin or virtually?
I'm very excited for the Robert Longo exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum this fall. I remember learning about him at SAIC and I've never seen a bunch of his pieces together in one room before. I'll be teaching in Sardinia, Italy this summer, and I'm very excited to finally see the Venice Biennale in person, instead of virtually! Lastly, I'm in the midst of my Artist's Residency at The Pfister Hotel this year, and this summer will complete a big renovation for the hotel. I'm very curious to see how they re-install the work from past residents (I'm the 15th!) and their Victorian art collection.