Patricia Mink is an associate professor and head of the Fibers program in the Department of Art & Design at East Tennessee State University. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Kalamazoo College and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Eastern Michigan University. Her current work explores the traditional layered quilt form, employing new digital techniques for weaving and/or printing fabric, as a means of establishing a visual dialogue addressing issues of contemporary culture. Drawing from historic associations with domesticity, comfort, and home, she believes the quilt form offers unique possibilities for developing content when combined with non-traditional techniques and unexpected imagery. Mink is interested in the relationship between surface and structure. This can manifest in several ways; the images she chooses, the materials she works with, and the layered forms they take.
Artist Statement
My current work explores the traditional layered quilt form, employing new digital techniques for weaving and/or printing fabric, as a means of establishing a visual dialogue addressing issues of contemporary culture. Drawing from historic associations with domesticity, comfort and home, the quilt form offers unique possibilities for developing content when combined with non-traditional techniques and unexpected imagery.
I am interested in the relationship between surface and structure. This can manifest in several ways- the images I chose, the materials I work with, and the layered forms they take. Fabric serves not only as a substrate for developed imagery, but also as a “built” form both in weave structure and constructed quilt. The play between 2-D and 3-D, the illusionary and the actual, creates a kind of space for metaphor unique to the medium of cloth.
“Venice III” is part of a series exploring patterns of both time and place.
“Made in the USA” is an installation juxtaposing the hand-made: utility quilt and overshot coverlet produced by anonymous makers, with the machine produced- Walmart photo “tapestry” of an image of mountaintop removal.
- M.F.A., Studio Art Eastern Michigan University; Concentration: Fibers
- Millinery Certificate Fashion Institute of Technology
- B.A., Liberal Arts Kalamazoo College; Concentration: Theatre Arts
Associate Professor – Fibers
East Tennessee State University
NAFTAE 