Theresa Richards Chickering (Reedsport) is a traditional quilter and artist who now creates original quilts using her own designs. Chickering has been a pivotal figure in her community for over 25 years as both an artist and a teacher. Today in her personal work, she has become known for her landscape quilts—and in more recent years—for her abstract quilt designs in the vein of today’s modern quilt movement.
Bio
Theresa Richards Chickering is a traditional quilter and artist who now creates original quilts using her own designs. Chickering has been a pivotal figure in her community for over 25 years as both an artist and a teacher. Today in her personal work, she has become known for her landscape quilts—and in more recent years—for her abstract quilt designs in the vein of today’s modern quilt movement. Chickering was born in Aberdeen, Maryland and reared in the very small town of Alpine, Oregon. Her mother sewed but did not quilt, though there were family quilts in the home that that had been passed through the family from as far back as Chickering’s great grandparents. Her mother enrolled her daughters in sewing 4H programs (4H is a U.S.-based network of youth organizations). Chickering also took home economics classes in highschool. Her father was a mechanic, welder, and inventor who, at one point, designed and built his own self-loading log truck. Chickering inherited her father’s gift for solving design problems in her head; for her, this has resulted in intricately pieced quilt tops. Although Chickering had tried quilting by cutting out a Sunbonnet Sue pattern when she was 15 years old, she didn’t finish it. A decade later, her interest in quilting blossomed when she met Ann Smith, a quilter with years of experience. In time. the two opened a quilt shop in Reedsport where they offered beginning classes. They also helped found Coast Quilters, the local quilt guild now 30 years running. Today, Chickering continues to schedule classes and teach for the guild. Theresa Chickering’s at-home quilting studio occupies most of the second floor of her house, which sits high atop the ridge line overlooking Reedsport. Although she started out on her home sewing machine, she has come to prefer the precision of her commercial quilting machine. Chickering enters the Coos Bay and Florence quilt shows every year. She has twice entered the Hoffman Challenge. Both times she has been selected for Hoffman’s national traveling show. As for mentors, “Tamara and Tara [Szalewski] at Mindpower Gallery have definitely done that.” By showing her art quilts at their local gallery, Chickering hopes to help bridge the divide between fine art and craft. Summing up her avocation for quilting, Theresa Chickering says, "I really feel blessed, really lucky that all the pieces fell into place like they were supposed to."
