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ArtPrize winner exhibiting at Dennos this month

One artist from Benzie County is not allowed in ArtPrize this year. That’s because she won the grand prize last year. Ann Loveless’ quilt work will be on display in Traverse City this month at The Dennos Museum Center.

Her victory at ArtPrize started a decade ago with a big problem. She was a seamstress then and the strength in her hands was starting to fail.

When you alter clothing, you rip apart sections of cloth that are sewn together. Her hands were developing arthritis from all the pulling.

“It’s mainly my thumbs here,” she says, indicating the base of her thumbs. “I can’t go out and weed my garden anymore. Pulling weeds I could maybe do about five minutes and then my hands would start hurting.”

Working with cloth was what she knew, so she turned to quilting.

Her first quilt was a landscape done with a pattern of another artist. Now she works from photographs and her quilts look like impressionist paintings. In some cases she sprinkles shredded cloth onto the quilt, which is held in place by a fine mesh.

Loveless says the quilted landscapes are nothing new.

“The general public, they think I invented this, but I really didn’t.”

Loveless first entered ArtPrize in 2011 with a single quilt. She saw if you wanted to win you needed something big that would get attention, since artwork is displayed at more than 150 venues across downtown Grand Rapids.

The next year, she did a panel of four quilts depicting the seasons. It was about 13 feet in length. She ended up in the top 25 in 2012.

Loveless almost didn’t go back for 2013. She says it’s a lot of work being in ArtPrize since it lasts almost three weeks.

“You can just take your piece and hang it in Grand Rapids and go home,” she says. “But if you really want to connect with the public it's better if you stay there by your piece.”

She spent 15 days at ArtPrize last year with the largest work she has ever made: four quilts called “Sleeping Bear Dune Lakeshore.” The 20-foot piece won the big prize – $200,000.

The winning piece is not on display at The Dennos Museum Center.

But she does have a new quilt for the exhibit. It's a series of panels depicting the other national lakeshore in Michigan, Pictured Rocks.

Ann Loveless will speak about her work on Friday night at 7 p.m. in Milliken Auditorium.

Peter Payette is the Executive Director of Interlochen Public Radio.