Artwork copyright Ross Palmer Beecher. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Artwork copyright Ross Palmer Beecher. Photo courtesy of the artist (detail).

Artwork copyright Ross Palmer Beecher. Photo courtesy of the artist (detail).

Artwork copyright Ross Palmer Beecher. Photo courtesy of the artist (detail).

Artwork copyright Ross Palmer Beecher. Photo courtesy of the artist (detail).

Artwork copyright Ross Palmer Beecher. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Sunnyside Up, 2019

Ross Palmer Beecher
(American, born 1957)

Location: Washington Elementary, Sunnyside

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Ross Palmer Beecher's Sunnyside Up is a four-part artwork that uses found materials and objects to represent ideas of education and the culture of Sunnyside in Central Washington. The artist brainstormed with the art selection committee to find meaningful themes for the quilt. Then she gave her wish list of "supplies" to teachers and students, who set up a donation bin in the school. All of the found objects in the quilt are from the school or local thrift shops. For example, Beecher learned that the students at Washington Elementary play a lot of board games. She included quilt squares of chess, checkers, scrabble, cribbage, and card games.

Altogether there are four quilts with a combined total of 26 different quilt squares. The imagery ranges from the farming communities, to student learning, to sunshine and sunglasses, to board games and sports, to Hispanic cultures, to astronaut Bonnie Dunbar who grew up in Sunnyside. Beecher notes that "I make traditional quilts and non-traditional quilts out of most anything besides fabric."

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Sunnyside School District.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ross Palmer Beecher is a Seattle-based mixed media artist. Her sculptural artworks are often composed as quilts and constructed of recycled materials. She describes her work as inspired by folk-art and "the joy of resourcefulness that has become a way of life."

Beecher grew up in the Northeast U.S. She studied painting, printmaking, and illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). In 1978, she moved to Seattle and began making traditional quilts to relieve her homesickness for the Northeast. In 1993, Beecher started managing the art therapy program at the Bailey-Boushay House for patients with AIDS in Seattle. She continues to be part of that program and it informs her own art practice. Her artworks are featured in museum collections including the Seattle Art Museum and Portland Art Museum. She received the 2020 Twining Humber Award for lifetime artistic achievement.

You can watch a short video about Beecher's art practice made by the Washington State Arts Commission in 2008 with support from the American Masters Program of the National Endowment for the Arts.