Heather Stoltz creates quilted wall hangings and fabric sculptures inspired by social justice issues, Jewish texts, and life as a mother. Look closely at the details in her pieces to understand the stories she is telling with her work.
How did you find yourself on an artist’s path? Always there? Lightbulb moment? Dragged kicking and screaming? Evolving?
My path to life as an artist has been long and winding. In my early years, I constantly pushed aside any inclination towards artistic endeavors in favor of a more practical path and went to college to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering. While I stayed on that path throughout college, I picked up an extra degree in Jewish studies and my senior project for that second major was a collection of black and white photographs and short stories about objects that held special memories for Jewish organizations and individuals.
After college, I worked for two years as an engineer and then realized that my father was right – I didn’t actually want to be an engineer. Not sure what to do next, I decided to turn toward my second degree and returned to school for a Master’s Degree in Jewish Studies. During my first year of the master’s program, I met the professor who would set me on a new path.
On the first day of her class on Eve in the Garden of Eden, Dr. Anne Lapidus Lerner told us that there would be a final project for this class, but it did not have to be a traditional research paper. If we chose, we could think creatively about the material and make something artistic in response to the texts. Since my background in engineering didn’t prepare me well for research papers, I was intrigued by this option. My mother and I had recently learned how to quilt and I was already bored following patterns, so I decided to try to create two quilted wall hangings that reflected our studies that semester – one about the stories of Creation and another about Eve reaching for the knowledge that the fruit in the garden promised.
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I loved this project so much that I switched into Jewish Women’s Studies to work more closely with Dr. Lerner and created another quilted wall hanging for my Master’s Thesis. After graduating, I kept quilting the stories of Biblical women, then other Jewish texts and many other stories from there.
Where do you find your inspiration for your designs? Does your work have stories to tell?
Every piece that I make starts with a story that I want to tell – either a personal story or one that brings an issue that I care deeply about into the light. It is my hope that through telling stories, people will gain a deeper understanding of the issue or feel a connection to the topic.
When it comes to creating, are you more of a planner or an improviser?
I’m very much a planner. Maybe it’s the engineering background, but I almost always start a piece with a sketch and a plan. Sometimes, the plan changes as I work if something isn’t quite working out the way I thought it would, but the finished piece almost always resembles the initial sketch.
How do you manage your creative time? Do you schedule start and stop times? Or work only when inspired?
I have two children, ages 11 and 9, so my work time is during the school day. Once both kids are off to school, it’s straight to the studio until pick up time. After that, I transform from artist back into mother and I’m all theirs until the next school/studio day.
Describe your creative space.
My studio is an extra bedroom in our house and I absolutely love it! It’s a room dedicated to my creations with a sewing table, a design wall, cutting table, and fabulous natural light. It’s always a complete disaster, but since no one else needs to use the space, it’s okay to leave projects partly finished all over the floor … until the mess makes me crazy and it’s time for a massive clean-up.
How does your studio organization contribute to your work process?
I think it’s more that my lack of organization is a hindrance to progress. Some days, I spend more time than I should looking for the scissors or the rotary cutter that got buried under a pile of fabric. I do have some attempts at organization though with drawers and cubbies to store fabrics by color and all of my threads and tools have homes in plastic drawers even if they don’t always live there.
Scraps. Saver? Or be done with them?
I used to save every scrap, but they just took up space and never got used. Now, I toss anything that’s too small to be useful in a workshop.
How often do you start a new project? Do you work actively on more than one project at a time?
I usually have quite a backlog of ideas and/or commissions so whenever I finish one piece, it’s on to the next. The time it takes to finish a project varies. Sometimes, I’ll finish a small piece in a week or two and sometimes it can take months to complete a piece.
Every once in a while, I have multiple projects going at once, but I mostly work on one piece at a time. If I have a commission come in, I’ll put aside a personal piece to do that first. And occasionally, a piece isn’t quite working and I need to put it in time out until I figure out how to solve the problem. There’s a large piece that has been waiting in the corner of my studio for almost a year now while I figure out how to make the picture in my head work in reality.
Can you tell us about the inspiration and process of one of your works? How does a new work come about?
Most of my pieces start with a story that I want to tell. My most recent series is about women’s pandemic stories. I interviewed several women and made fiber art pieces that reflect their lives during those tumultuous months.
One example is “Tangled in the Time Between,” the story of Cassandra Jones, owner of a hair salon in Westchester, NY. Cassandra managed a busy and highly scheduled life before the pandemic. She balanced work, her son’s school schedule, and a variety of after-school activities. And then suddenly there was no school and no after school activities. Before long, there was no work either. She was left in a void with none of the routine that had filled her days.
Slowly, she and her son created new daily routines with walks to the school to pick up their free lunch and visits to the local park. But even these seemingly peaceful activities were tinged with anxiety and uncertainty with too many people around. Over time, as life began to return to a version of normal, Cassandra found a new routine. She opened her own salon in a new space and her son returned to school and his activities. But in those days following the pandemic, life still held so much uncertainty with last minute schedule changes and quarantine. She also had a second child adding to both the joy and the chaos of her life.
This piece shows Cassandra’s journey from a highly scheduled routine represented by the carefully arranged squares at the top, through a tangled mess of undefined time in the middle, back to a schedule that is livable though full of holes and changes at the bottom of the piece.
Is there an overarching theme that connects all of your work?
The overarching theme in my work is the telling of stories, which is why I’ve named my art business “Sewing Stories.”
The stories I tell have changed over the years. My early pieces in graduate school and just after told the stories of Biblical women and then other Jewish texts.
Then I started telling stories to highlight social justice issues that are important to me and when my children were young, I created several pieces about parenthood and the conflicting emotions involved in raising young children.
How has your creativity evolved over the years? What triggered the evolution to new media/kinds of work/ways of working?
About five years ago, small purple figures started showing up in my pieces to help tell the stories. I needed a way to represent people that didn’t automatically make the viewer think about a specific person or group of people. So the purple people were born and they have stuck around ever since. I’ve tried playing with other colors or styles, but none worked as well as the purple figures so I’ll keep using them as long as it makes sense.
Do you enter juried shows? Do you approach your work differently for these venues?
I tend to enter juried shows that have themes that match pieces I have already completed or designed. Very rarely, a call for art will spark something and I’ll try to make something just for that show, but usually those pieces fall flat because the inspiration isn’t totally my own.
Do you keep track of your work? Shows that you’ve entered? Tell us what works for you.
Much like the attempt at organization in my studio, I have tried to keep track of my pieces and the shows I’ve entered. I have several started spreadsheets, but I never seem to be able to keep them up to date.
Where can people see your work?
You can see my work on my website: https://www.sewingstories.com/ and you can see work in progress and new pieces on Instagram @sewingstories or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SewingStories/. Sign up for my newsletter on the home page of my website or email me at [email protected] with any questions.
Interview posted February 2025
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