06/12/2026
It's , and this week we're celebrating Ohio fiber artist and quilter Susan Shie of Wooster. Shie is the recipient of the 2026 Ohio Designer Craftsman Outstanding Achievement Award for her distinctive style and her dedication to the continuation and development of the artform.
Shie grew up creating different kinds of art, including drawing, painting, writing, sewing, and clay work. She went on to earn a degree in studio art from The College of Wooster and an MFA from Kent State University.
Today, Shie's art quilts don't fit perfectly into any one category. Instead, they combine the practices of painting, fiber art, and writing to share stories about her life or provide commentary on current events. Shie considers herself an outsider artist. “To me,” she says, “an outsider artist is one who creates intuitively, according to her own passions, regardless of the amount of education she has.”
Each art quilt begins its life in sketches. She then stretches a large canvas on the wall and uses an airbrush to instinctively draw and paint images onto its surface. “It won’t look exactly like I sketched it, but it’s just an idea," Shie says. "When I expand it onto the cloth, I’m flexible about how it turns out.”
Finally, she uses an air pen to write her spontaneous thoughts onto the quilt. “It’s like writing a diary about my life and what’s happening in the world,” Shie says. “It’s what I’m thinking about. It’s a time capsule—I can look back and see what I was thinking about at the time.”
Image 1: Cary & Stephanie Hulin, creators of the award artwork, with Susan Shie and her husband, James Accord
Images 2-3: Susan Shie work in progress
Image 4: A completed quilt
Images and the original story provided by Ohio Designer Craftsmen, an OAC Statewide Arts Service Organization grantee
