Eszter Bornemisza first saw art quilts at the Quilt Expo in Lyon, France, and knew that was what she had to do. Influenced by her urban dwellings, you’ll find bits of maps in many of her pieces. She is curious about the world around her, news and events shape her work.

How did you get started making fiber art? Why did you choose that medium?
I studied mathematics, became a researcher in the field of sociology, and later I achieved a PhD in mathematical statistics. But all the time sewing has been one of my favourite free time activities.
In the communist times, there was a very narrow choice of clothing available. So I started to alter my grandmother’s old clothes to fit me in my early teen ages and that’s how I learned using the sewing machine in a self taught way. Later I sewed almost everything from leather shoes to overcoats and even suits for my family, wove jackets, and painted fabrics –but all these were just hobbies.
In 1996 I had the chance to visit a Quilt Expo in Lyon, France. I saw art quilts for the first time and thought they were like modern paintings made in the medium of textiles. I had always been keen on contemporary art, but never thought of trying to paint myself.
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Here my two independent interests suddenly joined up together: textile and modern art. It became clear to me in a flash, that this is what I have to do! I was bold enough to decide that in the next Expo a piece of mine will hang on the wall. And so it did. But before that in 1997 I entered a piece for the First European Quilt Championships in the Netherlands, and won best of show award. That gave me a real kick off. I also got a very strong support from my family, especially my husband; so after a few years of hesitation I dropped maths and turned to a full time studio maker.

What do you do differently? What is your signature that makes your work stand out as yours?
I like to delve and experiment along the themes that keep me interested. I hated school, so I don’t take courses, I don’t feel comfortable with them. I rather search for solutions for my entanglements in books or on the internet and try to find my own ways.
How does your environment influence your creativity?
I usually start with interesting bits of fabrics and papers residual from earlier works that I collage and place cut-out maps over it. Sometimes I take an old quilt of mine to rework it. While immersing in the process everyday news and issues seep into my mind that form and shape what develops.
An example is ‘Attempting a Dialogue’. I had an old quilt that I cut up, and started to layer my usual cut-out newsprint maps on it to see how they work. I felt a bit in my comfort zone making it, but my thinking got turned to a new direction after I read an article about societies around the world that, like my country, are getting more and more divided, one half of the people not talking to the other half. I portrayed this with two cities on separated surfaces while some streets striving to reach out towards the other one.

Where do you find your inspiration for your designs?
I draw inspiration from the graphical appearance of urban maps, old or new, real or imaginary. The abstraction of a place by lines and shapes intrigue me. I consider a city’s street network like its skeleton— a foundation for features of how people organized their society constrained by geographical circumstances, how it brings people together or fling communities apart. It is an imprint of how the society uses or abuses its place of living. I often combine maps with abstract or enigmatic fragmented scripts to grasp the experience of balancing on the edge of conjecture and comprehension.


What different creative media do you use in your work?
Basically I reuse old textiles, up-cycle newsprints, but also use all kind of soft discarded materials that can be stitched through. These can be spoilt X-ray films, integrated circuit films from chuck out computer keyboards, tea bags, shopping bags, flower wrappings and so on. Sometimes I make 3D objects of paper-maché on cardboard or chicken wire that I cover with self made paper pulp that I cook of rush and sedge.
When it comes to creating, are you more of a planner or an improviser?
I am rather an improviser, although I usually make small pencil sketches to feel the proportions, but the design gets resolved definitely on the design wall, where I see if the idea works at all, or how it could be improved.
How do you manage your creative time? Do you schedule start and stop times? Or work only when inspired?
I usually go with the flow. I like to get up early and start working with my coffee in my hand; I like to contemplate on what I have done the day before and try to be very critical before I move on. I give myself breaks. When I feel stuck, when I can’t even look at the piece anymore I do something else until curiosity brings me back to see what could be done to resolve it.

Do you have a dedicated space for creating? If so, what does it look like?
I have my studio in our apartment. After all the three kids moved out, we had a big renovation and we turned the largest bedroom to a studio. The most important things were to have a well lit big and high table and a spacious design wall.
Do you use a sketchbook or journal? How does that help your work develop?
No, I have lists of ideas, but no sketchbook or journal.


What plays in the background while you work? Silence? Music, audiobooks, podcasts, movies? If so, what kind?
Nothing. When I work I get totally immersed in what I do and don’t need and any noise that would distract my concentration.
How often do you start a new project? Do you work actively on more than one project at a time?
I usually just work on one project at a time. I’m not a multitasking person; I need to focus on one thing.




Which part of the design process is your favorite? Which part is a challenge for you?
It is the design part. Setting up a collage on my design wall, or taking an old quilt, pinning the map bits on it, gluing together and cutting sometimes tiny little bits of newsprints, developing the details, finding out how one part of the piece relates to the other part, how colours match, what is the whole piece about and how details underpin the idea.

Is there an overarching theme that connects all of your work?
As an urban dweller I have worked with city maps for over twenty years; I distort, chop and layer them while trying to understand our relations to urban existence. With the multilayered surfaces I aim to grasp moments of associations with finding our place in many contexts.
Using fragments of new and old, real and imaginary settlement plans I’m striving to get a sense of our roots. The experience of personal and collective stories, the sensing of remnants from earlier ages and the imprints of our ancestors’ knowledge in our consciousness all place the daily questions of our identity in a wider context. The translucent map fragments collaged into a large compositions mirror this relativity. With our vision meandering among the layers we might feel as balancing on the edge of conjecture and comprehension in experiencing the wholeness of the surrounding world.
City dwellers always carry their own “city” of subjective memory fragments and patterns of paths inside them. Trying to orientate in the physical present, sometimes we feel lost when we have to face reality. We re-draw our schemes; unearth earlier ones to help us, create new paths and relations which all will again go through continuous changes. I use this experience as the metaphor of our search for physical, spiritual and mental identity.


How has your creativity evolved over the years? What triggered the evolution to new media/kinds of work/ways of working?
It is curiosity about the surrounding world. Sometimes I find new meaning in a piece long time after making that I didn’t realise before. That makes me think more consciously on the next piece.
What do you do to keep yourself motivated and interested in your work?
I think, people who ambition to make art are usually motivated, otherwise it wouldn’t work. So I don’t think that I would need to keep myself motivated, but I love to visit contemporary art, or fibre art exhibitions to get some fresh air in my head. Usually I’m pushed by my ideas, but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t have break downs. Then I start with something else, like cleaning the studio, sorting shelves and boxes and there I always find something that gives me an idea for a new start.



Do you critique your own work? What is your process?
Yes, I constantly do. I don’t have any particular process, but I often try several versions of a design, take photos, look at them them in small to figure out which works the best, if any, or try to find another variation. Sometimes I edit these photos with Photoshop to see how a new idea would work when it would be too time consuming to try it on the real piece and if it looks good on the computer, I do it on the real piece.

Where can people see your work?
On my updated website, https://bornemisza.com/ virtually, and physically I have three pieces exhibited at the Hungarian Textile Triennial in Szombathely, Hungary this summer and from 7th September I will show two of my big installations with the 62 Group of Textile Artists ‘Learning as Making’ exhibition at Salts Mill, Saltaire, West Yorkshire, UK. Another installation of mine can be seen at the Walkway Gallery in Bordertown, South Australia at the International Art Textile Biennial.
Interview posted July 2024
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