Sonya Lee Barrington

"Over the years my immediate goals change, but I continue to work with cloth, color, and line in the domain of quilts."

Creating quilt-like items that blur the line between function and display, Sonya Lee Barrington is not offended when a viewer calls her work "craft" or even "decorative" instead of "art." With a sensibility that designs patchwork for both the bed and the wall, she can spot the art within her craft as easily as she can identify the craft within her art.

Barrington works with dupioni silk. Even though the patterned cloth and graphic quality of her work is not entirely traditional, she considers herself a traditionalist given her use of thin layers and some quilting.

A native of San Francisco, Barrington began sewing with her grandmother on a treadle machine when she was young. Grandma Mabel taught her both the basics of thrift with cloth and the love of working with needle and thread. She began using the medium of quilts as her means of expression in 1968.

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