Artist at Work x 4CPA | Daniela Puliti
Welcome Quilt
Daniela Puliti’s colorful sidewalk mural, Welcome Quilt, can be found at Treat Place in Downtown Newark, NJ. The mural features a crochet-style patchwork of designs and colors, inspired by the LGBTQ flag and the decorative arts collection at the Newark Museum, where she pulled some of the hand-painted patterns. Conceptually, it is an ode to and calling for inclusivity.
Welcome Quilt featured in Phase I of the Four Corners Public Arts (4CPA) project.
TRANSCRIPT
DANIELA: The title of my piece is Welcome Quilts. So what made it a little bit more difficult for me, I had to wait for all of the wall murals to be completed first because there were scaffoldings and a lot of foot-traffic happening. It’s composed of stenciled, crocheted, granny square designs in the rainbow LGBTQ colors, and also a wide variety of skin tones.
In addition to the stencil design, there are a number of squares that are inspired by the Newark Museum quilt collection. So those were all hand-painted and one-of-a-kind. It’s going to be a quilt that’s a signal to people in the community that they’re welcome and they belong as part of the community.
About Daniela Puliti
Daniela Puliti manipulates craft-based materials with an intuitive painter’s sensibility. She has participated in short term residencies at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (NYC), Vermont Studio Center, and the Wassaic Project. She has exhibited her work throughout NJ, NY, CT, and GA. Activism has become a growing aspect in her work. She leads workshops sharing her knowledge of knitting and crochet, encouraging craft as a coping mechanism for anxiety and depression. In addition to her art practice, she works as a gallery assistant at Project for Empty Space in Newark, NJ where her studio is based.
See more of Daniela’s work here and follow @danielabobella on Instagram.
About Four Corners Public Arts
Four Corners Public Arts was initiated in 2019 through a public/private partnership convened to support public arts initiatives in Newark’s historic district “Four Corners”. The partnership includes The City of Newark, Invest Newark, Newark Arts, Newark Downtown District, Paramount Assets, and RBH Group. The partnership evolved out of a common interest to give care to under-acknowledged areas of the City through the arts, with the goal of cultivating creative communal space for everyone. At a time when Newark is undergoing a marked transformation, the partnership believes it is imperative to create opportunities that strengthen the local creative community.
This story was supported, in part, by a Newark Creative Catalyst grant.
Special thanks to The City of Newark, New Jersey.
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