The Ashley Longshore Quilt

Ashley Longshore is known as the modern day Andy Warhol.

Her art is vibrant, bright, funny and beautiful.

Her art makes me smile and I love how she touches on topics that others may shy away from. In addition to that, the unapologetic way that she seems to live her life – also vibrant, bright, funny and beautiful.

The first time I ever saw her on television (In project Runway 2020) I stopped what I was doing and stood transfixed. Hol-ly shitballs???!!! Who was this woman?? I was in awe! She was enthusiastic, energetic, upbeat, bright and completely larger than life.

She seemed to exude a positive energy and a zest for life and I immediately looked her up on social media – thinking this woman is fabulous!! Her social media is everything you think it will be and more. It has the same bright, colourful, energetic, enthusiastic feel that totally inspired me.

Her art is exciting and she seems to be one of these unique people that not only has the ability to produce her own beautiful works of art, but also inspire others and excite them to go produce their own art and that is exactly what I did.

When I decided to start this journey of creating pixel quilts of women who have inspired me, I knew Ashley would be the first. I also knew the image that would work immediately and produced, what has been to date, the most colourful pixel quilt I have ever made.

This quilt, using lots of colour and skin tones had a huge learning curve. I got the skin shades completely wrong to begin with and changed them all out. I spent time working and re-working the glasses and the reflection in them. I struggled with whether the hair would read properly but finally, after abut 80 hours of cutting, sewing, ripping out stitches, re-sewing, I could finally step back and see the quilt as a whole and know that it had worked.

The quilt is 72″ x 96″

2,468 pieces of fabric

10 different colours of fabric