We’ve long been preoccupied with the art of quilt-making here at PRINT, shedding light on a medium that has historically been undervalued and pushed to the margins. We’ve chatted with quilter Bisa Butler about her practice, as well as Carolyn Mazloomi, founder of the African American Quilters Guild of Los Angeles and the Women of Color Quilters Network. An overdue wave of respect and appreciation for quilt making has swelled over the last decade or so, thanks in large part to the work of Butler and Mazloomi, and other up-and-coming quilt makers like Ben Millett.
Based in Des Moines, IA, Millett has a first-of-its-kind solo show of his quilts on view at the Des Moines Art Center now through November 2. As part of their Iowa Artists 2025 series, Millet has assembled a collection of his quilts that form the Center’s first-ever quilt-based solo exhibition, blending traditional craftsmanship with bold visual storytelling. The 20 or so quilts in the show explore themes of pop culture, Millett’s queer identity, and the practice of quilting itself. Forever the fiber arts enthusiast, I reached out to Millett to learn more about his work and the show. His responses to our questions are below, edited lightly for clarity and length.
How would you describe your personal aesthetic as an artist?
The art that I am most drawn to falls into the buckets of Abstract Expressionism, Color Field, and Queer abstraction, and aspects from all of those have informed my own quilt-making practice. My selection of high-chroma, solid color fabrics started from a place of exploring how each color impacted another, depending on the shape and size of the fabric patch. The set of colors I primarily use has evolved to the eleven colors of the Progress Pride flag, even if the quilt doesn’t have a queer theme or use all eleven colors.
These colors are my launchpad to explore the “between states,” to navigate transitions and nuance through gradients of hue and value. Solid color fabrics (as opposed to fabric with printed designs) allow me to approximate Hard-edge painting techniques by minimizing distractions across a color’s surface and its edges.
My quilts almost always touch on an aspect of exploration.
Hanky Code
What are the central themes you’re typically exploring in your work?
My quilts almost always touch on an aspect of exploration. In recent years, I’ve drawn upon queer identity, pop culture, and quilt-making itself as spaces in which I try to find order and understanding. I accepted my gay identity in late 2014, and I still continue to question what being gay means for my own life. Am I doing this thing because it’s what all the other gays are doing or because I want to? What do I enjoy now because of every queer person who came before me? What am I doing to make it easier for others to come out? “Hanky Code” became my attempt to remember the gay men in the 1960s and 1970s who found a way to signal interests to others who were “in the know.” And “Not Everyone Wears a Rainbow” honors people who, for one reason or another, cannot publicly share their own identity.
Pop culture provides a rich field for interrogation, to question why something has become popular or how media and culture reinforce a particular message. It provides opportunities to recognize and celebrate parts of oneself, already known or still unknown, or to challenge what we know to be true. As I work, I ask why I’ve made a certain thing from pop culture into my entire personality, instead of this other still very cool, but not quite right, thing? “If I Had Said Yes” connects my interest in scifi, time travel, and alternate timelines (especially as portrayed in Marvel’s Loki series) with my own history of grappling with a gay identity.
Who gets to decide the value of a quilt? Are everyday use quilts more or less valuable than quilts intended for a wall?
There is a deep history of who has traditionally made quilts, the intentions of those quilt makers for their quilts, and what materials they used to construct quilts. Quilts weren’t always made for wrapping around bodies; the story quilts of Harriet Powers from the 1890s serve as well-known examples of quilts not intended for everyday use. Who gets to decide the value of a quilt? Are everyday use quilts more or less valuable than quilts intended for a wall? The Book of Benjamin is a book of small quilts bound together. The book could be used daily, but it would function poorly to warm a body. Quilted garments can especially tug at what a quilt is meant to be. The garments are worn close to the body for warmth while performing the same functions as any other piece of clothing: to call for attention, to diminish the wearer, to communicate a message. The sweatshirt pair Midsommar (Dani) and Midsommar (Christian) resemble the last views we have of two characters from Ari Aster’s 2019 film Midsommar and pull together multiple themes: Who are my people? How can I see some of my lived experience in film? What do I intend for the quilts I make?
If I Had Said Yes
What is it about the tactile medium of quilt-making that speaks to you as an artist? What does it offer you that other art forms don’t?
I’m drawn to the history of quilts as objects that are often touched by a person or household animal. Often, quilt makers will talk of the texture that quilting (the stitches joining together the quilt top, the quilt backing, and the batting sandwiched between them) can create. Depending on how the quilting stitches are created, there can be tall hills and deep valleys, or the quilt could be virtually flat. These surfaces practically beg people to touch them. Unlike paintings or sculptures, where we’re told never to touch the surface, quilts aren’t similarly restricted, due to their domestic history. I design almost all of my quilts digitally before I even cut into fabric. While I do greatly enjoy working with pixels for graphic design, I’ve found that the tactility of a finished quilt brings me more satisfaction than a finished digital work (even if it’s been printed on paper).
These surfaces practically beg people to touch them. Unlike paintings or sculpture where we’re told never to touch the surface, quilts aren’t similarly restricted.
This tactile nature of quilts is why I made “touch samples” for the exhibition. In a museum setting, we especially don’t want people to touch the art (even if I’ve already physically worn the jackets in public). I had off-cuts from some of the quilts in the show and recreated samples of others, so that visitors can still feel how texture can vary with different hand quilting stitches, or with a combination of machine and hand quilting, or with varying quilt stitch densities.
I have also come to appreciate the working structure that quilt blocks can provide. Three basic patchwork units (a rectangle, a triangle, and a curve) can be arranged in nearly limitless possibilities when different colors are applied. I favor nonrepresentational designs, which give me the freedom to infuse meaning through the color and arrangement of the patches within a block and the arrangement of the blocks themselves. As with each medium, there are guidelines for success, and I enjoy figuring out which guidelines become my rules (precise cutting of fabric with rulers and a rotary cutter; pressing seams open) and which become suggestions (pressing with steam, pre-washing fabric).
Midsommar C
What was the process like putting together your current solo exhibition at the Des Moines Art Center? How did it feel seeing that come together and experiencing the finished product?
When Senior Curator Laura Burkhalter invited me to be the 2025 entrant to the Iowa Artists series of exhibitions, one of the first questions I had was confirmation that I could create new pieces for the show. I knew the pieces I had already made could come together into a cohesive show, but I had ideas for new quilts that built on the questions already explored with the existing quilts.
Within a few weeks of the invitation, I was diagnosed with colon cancer and immediately underwent treatment. I’m healthy now, but I was limited during treatment in what I could physically construct. I took advantage of the time to create a queue of digital designs for when I was well again. The main piece that I designed was “If I Had Said Yes.” Knowing the gallery space in which the quilts would be displayed and the size of its walls, I wanted a collection of quilts tied to one concept that would fill an entire wall.
cut patches for If I Had Said Yes
In 2022, I created a series of quilts (Lokean Variants) constructed from a combination of common patchwork units. Each quilt had nine copies of a block, with each block rotated in a different order across the quilts. And each quilt’s repeated block had patches consisting of a set of fabric colors rotated in different ways. While that series represented variants of a fictional Loki character, I wanted to explore variants of myself across time.
Some quick math revealed that the maximum number of quilts that would fit on the wall was twenty-one. I reflected on my life story and identified twenty-one moments that, in other timelines, could have been the moment I accepted my gay identity. In addition to two background fabric colors (a bright green and a white), I added two quilt-specific colors. To reflect the passing of time for each variant, each quilt was assigned one value of green, from dark (earliest in my life) to light (closest to the current time). The fourth color was to be one selected from the eight stripes of the 1978 flag created by Gilbert Baker. He had associated words with each color, and by categorizing the twenty-one events with one of the words, I could thereby assign the fourth color. White thread was selected for consistent, computerized machine quilting, while hand quilting thread was selected to coordinate with each quilt’s four colors.
The repeated patches of the blocks, the background colors, and horizontal machine quilted lines across the quilts unite the quilts, reinforcing their connection to the same entity or person. But the arrangement of the patches, rotation of the blocks, unique combinations of a green value and Pride flag color, and distinct hand-quilting patterns mark each quilt as a unique individual. They’re united and stand on their own.
I had also done a lot of research into the history of art and craft, and how quilts fit into that timeline, and I wanted to include the functionality of quilts within the show because the beauty of quilts comes not only from how they look. The manifestation of that aspect evolved as Laura and I added and removed various preexisting pieces from the checklist. An additional gallery space was added to support this effort. Clothing hangers appear to float mid-air over two platforms, holding quilt garments and wall quilts as if they were cloaks. Gentle air drafts generated by bodies of visitors moving within the gallery cause the quilts to gently spin and sway. Visitors know how quilts are used in domestic settings, and it was important to have a reminder of that next to the quilts on the walls.
Despite having a stack of the quilts in front of me throughout their construction, it wasn’t until their installation at the Art Center that I saw them all together as one whole. I was nervous that the play of union and individuality would be lost, but I was elated when it worked even better than I had hoped it would.
Processed With Darkroom
Midsommar D
What aspect of the exhibition are you proudest of?
The interplay of various themes I explore is balanced through the selection of pieces in a way that I hadn’t anticipated. Personal stories overlap studies in LGBTQ experience, overlap color play and exploration, overlap personally-relevant moments of pop culture, overlap myriad examples of what a quilt can be, all in different combinations. This reflects both my making practice and my own self. The overlaps also provide multiple access points for visitors to relate to and engage with the works. So, despite the quilts holding abstract representations of concepts, I don’t have to share every detail about every quilt for visitors to build upon their own relationships to the ideas presented in the exhibition.
Not Everyone
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