Meet the Artist: Buffie Finkel

Buffie is our fabulous textile artist. She creates colorful art quilts that are full of light, and capture the depth of her subject. Her art quilts range from landscapes, to people, to poetry. In each quilt, Buffie finds a way to express the quality of light using a non-translucent material. Her technique of collaging layers of fabrics give a unique style to her quilts.

Buffie’s current favorite work, Moroccan Rugs, gives the viewer the illusion of walking up a flight of blue stairs through brilliantly colorful orange and red detailed hanging rugs:

Buffie spent most of her early life painting. She took art classes in college, then one day, she happened to watch Sewing with Nancy on PBS, featuring landscape quilting. “I thought 'I can do that,' and I have never looked back. My Mom sewed a lot. Being raised around a sewing machine gave me the confidence to explore my exciting new passion.”

“I thought '

I can do that,'

& I have never

looked back."

Buffie’s muses are her mom and her sister who is a mosaic artist. Buffie says the feelings are mutual. Recently, Buffie decided that she no longer wished to have the creation ofher art contribute to the growing problem of textile pollution in the word. To this end, Buffie has committed to no longer buying new fabric for her artwork and is choosing to use found materials going forward. “I feel this decision on my part brings my art into clear alignment with my values. What I find is that, having made this choice, inspiration flows strongly, with new excitement and vigor.”