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Louis Buhl & Co. is pleased to present our first print edition with Detroit-based artist Ellen Rutt, titled How to Begin Anyway, releasing Thursday, July 21st at 12 pm EST. Characterized by layered shapes and primary colors, How to Begin Anyway is based on the first quilt Rutt ever made. 

As Rutt simply explains, “beginning is the hardest part for me.” It is in these moments of suspension that the artist turns to quilting: when they feel stuck, when their life feels unstable, when the surrounding circumstances are unpredictable and untenable, when they can’t figure out what to do next. Rutt views the print like a map, tracking our traverses through life’s uncertainties and arriving at an aerial view of an invented place. Supporting Rutt’s improvisational and playful artistic nature, a custom-shaped paper molds to the composition, emphasizing the geometric yet imperfect blocks of color presented.

For Rutt, the practice of quilting is one of simultaneous internal and external exploration. Utilizing materials from a myriad of sources, such as a stranger’s bed sheet or her close friend’s t-shirt, the tapestries merge histories near and far. Says the artist: “The act of quilting connects me to family members I never met, to my great grandmother who made a family quilt out of feed sacks from her farm, to my lineage of Swedish quilters. It connects me to the profoundly impactful Gee’s Bend quilters in the South whose deep legacy of quilting as a liberatory practice persists, to the community of queers who wielded soft fabric as a force of resistance during the Aids crisis, and to the expanding contemporary intergenerational community of people who quilt for themselves, for others, for joy, and for collective action.”