Meet Quilt Artist Muna Elias

I was introduced to Muna during a Quilts on the Wall meeting. She was brought by several other members who 'car pool' from around the San Diego area. That first day Muna shared some of her wearable pieces. It was a wild day, Muna's energy and excitement for life show up in all her work, and I am certainly grateful for having met-- and being able to get to know Muna better all the time!

In her own words:
I LOVE to create!! I can remember somewhere around the age of 4 years old I would take my mom’s dish towels and cut them up and make new fashionable, out of the ordinary outfits for all my dolls. My mom realized after a few years that this was not a phase and started signing me up for every needle art class she could find. I loved it all. Knitting crocheting, weaving, hand embroidery, quilting, ribbon work…if you can think of it, I have tried it and enjoy it.

I am a process artist, meaning I most enjoy trying and creating different and unique techniques to achieve a specific end look in my art. I look at objects and scenery and visualize in my mind the necessary processes to capture that look. Wherever it is possible, I incorporate non traditional material and in non traditional ways. I enjoy working with fibers such as yarn and thread and I will use them as a surface embellishment or an edging to finish my quilts. Most of my work starts off as a whole cloth in either white or black and I layer color on top of color and even discharge color after I just dyed it on the fabric. The sole purpose of doing this is to get a specific look. Surface embellishments with metal, fibers, paint, paper, dyes, and most important to me is lots and lots of thread work; all come together to achieve the desired look I envision.

I try to create some kind of art work daily. I have realized that when I do so regularly, I really am a much happier Mom, wife, boss, friend, PERSON…. So I just do it!!

I have lots of little ones (seven to be exact) who help me in my daily creating of art. They are an inspiration to my art. Some of my art work is a direct result of conversation, sayings or phrases we have in our house. The children help me to see all the colors in our garden and the bugs crawling on the trees. Walking in our house and finding each of the children working on different mixed media art work is common. One may be beading a purse, one may be working on knitting a scarf, or one might be weaving on the loom. My success in creating art work is that we get to create all together.

(photo credit - Jason Lanier)