Pauline Burbidge is one of the UK’s most renowned quilt makers. She has been making quilts for 35 years, after completing a degree in Fashion & Textiles at St. Martins Art College in London in the early 70s.
Pauline’s first quilts were traditional in style using the Maple Leaf and Day Lily blocks. “I loved the geometric form, and the pattern connected with repeating blocks,” she explains. And it was geometric piecing that Pauline used to develop her skills during her early quilting years. These developed into complex 3D illusionistic forms by the mid 1980s.
After over a decade spent working with very clear shapes, Pauline made the decision to work more spontaneously, and experimented with torn paper collages. She now uses what she calls ‘free-form collage’ and stitch to make her work.
Today Pauline connects her love of fabric, stitching, colour, drawing and photography with the inspiring surroundings of the around her Scottish Borders home. “I love to visit remote places and observe and absorb the nature. We live in a constantly demanding world, yet I hope to draw attention to the necessity of peace, quietness and the importance of the natural world we live in,” Pauline explains.
Technically, Pauline Burbidge prefers using natural fibres, choosing the appropriate cloth for the imagery. “Recently I have been working with dress weight cotton fabrics and transparent silks. I often start with white cloth, then paint, pleat or stitch, then collage and quilt it, with more stitching. For my threads, I choose natural fibres again, cottons, silks or linens. I like them to have a matt finish. I really do use Coats threads most of the time (I am not just saying this to keep in with them!) I love the Anchor Coton a Broder No 16 for my large hand stitching, and a 30 or 40 cotton thread for machine stitching.”
Even as one of the top quilt artists in the country, Pauline admits it is hard to earn a living from her profession... perhaps this is because, as she puts it, “Stubbornly, I rarely choose to work on commission, because I want to choose my own path. Just occasionally a commission may take my fancy, as was the case with Jack Walsh, who wanted a quilt based on any aspect of ‘water’. I made the quilt called Nottingham Reflections for him in 1994.” (See detail, left.)
The Applecross Quilt (a detail of which is also pictured top left) was commissioned by Sheffield Galleries and Museum Trust, for the exhibition On the Map in 2008. The imagery for this quilt grew from the experience of being in the extraordinary landscape that surrounds Applecross on the North West coast of Scotland. The piece also links with the tradition of whole cloth quilts.
The aforementioned quilts are what Pauline Burbidge terms her Studio Quilts, which are specially made as wall hangings, but she also makes usable and functional quilts that she calls Quiltline. She has been developing them over the last 6 years, and they are on show annually at the Festival of Quilts and also at her Open Studio exhibition. Both these events are in August.
Many of Pauline Burbidge’s quilts have been purchased by UK Museums and major collections in the USA. Pauline’s Applecross Quilt is included in the V&A exhibition Quilts 1700 – 2010.
To see more of Pauline Burbidge’s work please visit her website and also the Quiltline website.