ARTIST PROFILE
Artist Joe Cunningham started making quilts in 1979, conceiving from the get-go that he could maybe make a career of it. He tells us, “There weren’t many professional quilt-makers around in the late Seventies and no one could prove your credentials. So, I had business cards printed and set myself up.” Around this time, quilt guilds were forming and Joe began to be invited to give talks at their meetings. He also worked at the quilt shows that were springing up, where he’d meet lots of quilters, including a handful of other professionals – “It wasn’t the massive industry it is today,” he says.
As well as being a quilt-maker, Joe is also an accomplished musician and has performed his musical quilt show ‘Joe the Quilter’ for guilds and theatres across the United States. “It seems I was born to make art of one kind