Hilde Hoogwaerts discovered quilting while living in the US. She has traveled extensively around the world experiencing different cultures and ways to express creativity. Now, she incorporates colorful African wax prints in her detailed quilts.
How did you find yourself on an artist’s path? Always there? Lightbulb moment? Dragged kicking and screaming? Evolving?
Throughout my childhood I was surrounded with handicrafts in and around the house. Both of my parents were craftspeople and made a lot of things with their hands.
My dad was an engineer, in his spare time he made small furniture and was always busy with saw, glue and nails.
My mom often worked with her sewing machine and made wall hangings and clothes. These wall hangings were decorated with embroidery stitches, ribbons and beads. Making things with my hands – either with wood or with textile – therefore came naturally to me.
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How has your creativity evolved over the years? What triggered the evolution to new media/kinds of work/ways of working?
Quilting came on my path when we lived in Marietta, Georgia, in 1990. Nearby was a small quilt shop that also hosted workshops. Here I made my first sampler, using the then popular pastel shades and floral fabrics. A hand quilting course followed and my love for making quilts was born. I was drawn to the creative approach to playing with geometric patterns; something I probably inherited that from my engineering father!
How has your creativity evolved over the years? What triggered the evolution to new media/kinds of work/ways of working?
About 10 years later, when we lived in Singapore, I encountered the colorful fabrics of Kaffe Fassett, which gave me a huge impulse to take up quilting again, reigniting my love for colorful geometric combinations: the more color I added the more I liked it. I joined an international quilting group that regularly met and where a lot of skills and knowledge was exchanged. I started to develop an intuition for how to bring many different colors together, a process that is still ongoing.
For about 30 years we moved quite a few times internationally, and throughout this journey my creative work – quilting in particular – grew from being a hobby to a passion that impacted my life in many more ways than I’d imagined when I first came across it.
The countries we lived in were the USA, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, Brazil, Chile, Italy, Spain and Ghana. In all these places I was influenced by the people and their different cultures.
In Ghana I quickly became inspired by how the African cloths were worn, how the colors were combined, and by the different types of textiles. At the local Textile Print factory, I saw up close how the local wax prints are made and learned what to look out for when buying the best fabric. Ghana is also known for its colorful Kente, a woven cloth that is worn during festive occasions. During a trip to the northern region of Ghana, I visited Kente weavers and indigo dyers and saw firsthand how yarn was dyed using indigo dye pots in the ground before being woven into narrow strips. I started to incorporate these beautiful fabrics, abundant on the streets and at the market, in my quilts and as part of the box making workshops I once again set up.
Using the technique of Kool Kaleidoscope Quilts by Ricky Tims, I immersed myself in my studio in our apartment in new techniques and perspectives, using all the different colors and prints by making many kaleidoscope quilts, curious to see how different colors might work together. I pushed myself away from the familiar and safe use of color combinations and prints and challenged myself to find out how to bring balance to all the large colorful prints. As I started to increasingly master this, I started receiving commissions. One of these commissions was a backdrop of a photobooth at a wedding. This backdrop needed to be big, 3×3 meter. In this quilt I tried to get as close as possible to what you see when looking in a kaleidoscope, alternating dark and light in the different sections. The end result is the quilt Fly Away With Me.
After three inspiring years in Ghana we made our last move, returning to the Netherlands, with four large suitcases filled to the brim with African wax print fabrics, to be able to continue similar projects.
Having become my favorite fabric for making quilts, I continue to work with African wax prints. I now also incorporate the softer color palettes from the modern wax prints which have become available more recently, continuing to challenge myself to find new colorful and geometric combinations. The large prints in the modern wax prints challenge me to new combinations in my designs.
The inspiration for my designs comes from traditional blocks, star designs, church windows and geometric designs. I make my designs using a pencil, paper and ruler and draw them in actual size.
Quilting and boxes. Tell us more about your journey in creating both of these works.
It was in Singapore that a friend taught me cartonnage – the craft of box making, using cardboard to build boxes and decorating them with paper and fabric. I was taken by the way that fabric’s patterns folded around the edges of the boxes and came together at the seams. Eventually my friend and I started teaching workshops for beginners, intermediate and advance levels, making lots of different types of boxes.
I continued to teach these workshops after we left Singapore for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Especially once the children had left home, teaching workshops gave me a new way to deal with the ‘empty nest’. Teaching was also an opportunity to meet other creative people, becoming even more valuable when moving to a new country every few years, building new social circles from scratch.
Materials weren’t as easily available there, so I brought enough fabric, yarn and paper from Singapore to Vietnam. I did however also use materials found locally, such as Indonesian batik fabrics, which I started to incorporate in both my quilts and boxes. It was in Vietnam where I started my company Gecko Boxes, named after the small salamanders, that hid between my materials and sometimes laid eggs in one of the boxes in my studio.
Making boxes is nowadays a nice craft to get distracted from designing quilts, it brings my mind at ease when I get stuck at a quilt in progress or want to ponder about a new design.
Describe your createive space. Working across many different media, how to you organize all of your creative supplies?
I am lucky to have 2 studio’s, one for sewing and one for making boxes.
Have you found something intended for one media that works well for something else?
The large wax prints I use in my quilts are equally beautiful to use in box making as well. The fabric wraps around the box making this an interesting new object.
Do you use a sketchbook or journal? How does that help your work develop?
I do not use a journal to come to new designs. Maybe I should. As I have been working on my own most of the time while living abroad for so many years, I taught myself designing quilts without writing the process down.
How often do you start a new project? Do you work actively on more than one project at a time?
I start a new project after I finish the one before. If that pattern works, I like to repeat the same pattern in a new colour cobination and/or make a variation of it. Until I have the feeling I have mastered it enough before going on to the next one.
Sometimes I have more projects on my design wall, but as this design wall is not so big, working on more projects can be a challenge.
Can you tell us about the inspiration and process of one of your works? How does a new work come about?
Looking in books, magazine’s and visiting museums can bring me new inspiration. My latest El Fandango is inspired by mural art.
Which part of the design process is your favorite? Which part is a challenge for you?
Drawing the lines on paper which have been in my mind for some time, brings me joy. When these lines and shapes are turned into patchwork, and the colours and prints give a new dimension to the design, for me that’s the best moment.
After this the tedious job of sewing all these pieces together is the least likeable thing to do, until it is all sewn.
When you travel, do you create while on planes and in waiting areas? What is in your creative travel kit?
When I travel I prefer reading books, something I don’t do so much when at home as my sewing room keeps calling me.
Is there an overarching theme that connects all of your work?
I love geometrical shapes, star patters and traditional blocks.
How has your creativity evolved over the years? What triggered the evolution to new media/kinds of work/ways of working?
When we lived in Ghana for three years I used the traditional wax prints, widely available on the streets and in the markets. The colours of these fabrics are strong and bold. Many prints have been given a meaning, such as strong women, Kofi Annan’s brains, Nukruma’s pencil, If you fly – I fly, water well, etc.
When we moved to the Netherlands, after some time my colour use started to change. The light is different, people on the streets are dressed differently and so I started using less variety of colours in my work I also started using the more subdued colours and designs of the modern wax prints. These prints are made in the Netherlands and shipped to West Africa. I am lucky I can buy these prints by the 6-yards in the warehouse in the Netherlands.
What do you do to keep yourself motivated and interested in your work?
If I cannot sew for a couple of days I can become grumpy; sewing is simply a necessity for me to stay happy. My husband died a year ago, suddenly after a short illness. Being creative gives me solace, distraction from my sadness. It also gives me focus in my otherwise overloaded head. Making is indeed creative therapy.
What’s the best piece of advice you can give?
All I can say is: follow your feeling in color, patterns, step out of your comfort zone every now and then, sign up for a challenge, do something crazy.
For me it is always a challenge to work with the fabrics I have; every now and then a certain fabric is no longer available and I have to look for a different solution and often the nicest and unexpected creations come out of that.
Where can people see your work?
Instagram: @hildehoogwaerts
Website: hildehoogwaerts.com
Book: Fly away with me by QuiltMania (still available from me)
Interview posted December 2024
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