Art Quilting with Leo!

To give you a little history on myself, my name is Leo Ransom and I live in a moderately sized town named Sherman, Texas about an hour north of Dallas. I learned to piece when I was 17 years old from my home economics teacher and did not return to quilting for about 15 years. At that time, I needed to make a craft for our family reunion and decided to start quilting again. One problem that I had when I started was not having the physical and mental support that a quilter needs. So, I relied on Alex Anderson and her show “Simply Quilts” with my first quilt top being a 3-Dimensional Bow Tie, then a Bullseye quilt and most recently a Bargello Wave.

I am self-taught, so everything I know has been learned by trial and error, google and my most recent support of friends with the same quilting interests. I worked on traditional patterns of quilting until I decided to visit the local guild here in Sherman. I felt a little judged at first on my quality and craftsmanship, not to mention being a man. But soon they were giving me tips when the time served. This is what I had been needing in order to get better considering quilting was considered a woman's hobby. On my second visit, there was a presenter who talked about art quilts and happened to be teaching a workshop the next day. So, I joined the guild and signed up for the workshop. It was very informative and gave me a new outlook on quilting. She returned and taught a second workshop. That is where I jumped out of the traditional box and into the world of art quilting. Sometimes I have mixed traditional with art when I see fit. I love art quilting because even as a man I feel as though I fit in with everyone. Also, I love the fact that there are no art quilting rules and you can improvise or just throw everything out the window about traditional quilting.

In art quilting, I can use different mediums from different fabrics, thread and batting to painting, mod podge and fusible. As an art quilter, I have been creating for 10 years now. I find inspiration in the least of dimensional designs of buildings, carpet and wall treatments. I specialize in portraits, but I like to give them as much of a creative twist as I possibly can. My most recent competition win consists of 2 portraits that were splice in exactly the same spots on each portrait and then recombining them to create one quilt. I also use a silhouette, layering and collage techniques to create my pieces. I have a passion for my field and I feel as though I have found my niche in the quilt world.