Biography
Holly Knott
I’m an artist who could never call just one medium my own. In 2004, I left behind the corporate world of a 17-year career as an interactive systems designer and usability testing specialist in Princeton, NJ, to focus on my own artwork and small business fulltime. We moved from beautiful Bucks County, PA, to equally beautiful upstate NY in the eastern Finger Lakes region, where I began my Holly Knott LLC website design business, and where I also became co-owner and founding member of 2 new artisan’s galleries, where I sold my own fine art (art quilts and associated greeting cards and fiber art products such as handbags, tote bags, scarves and more). I also continued exhibiting my quilts across the country for a few years. In late 2012, we had to relocate, but feel fortunate that we wound up in the gorgeous Berkshire Mountains in Western Massachusetts. I’m wondering if we’ll develop a New England accent! 😉
While my main focus is my website/graphic design business now located in the Berkshires (though my customer base is worldwide), I spend my free time working in a wide variety of media, including contemporary art quilts (landscape and pictorial quilts are my favorites), photography, watercolors, pastel paintings, hand-painted furniture, gardening, and various home remodeling projects. I’m also a published author – see “Quilted Garden Delights” (C&T Publishing – February, 2008) that I co-authored with my mother, the artist Diane Knott.
I hold an A.A.S. in Advertising Design from Mercer County Community College, NJ, where I received scholarships and awards for artistic excellence, and I’m proud to say that “just having an associate’s degree” has not held me back in any way.
I live with my husband, Paul, and our cats, in a lovely restored 1928 cape cod on a rocky and wooded hillside overlooking a creek, in the beautiful Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts.
Inspiration for my work comes from my surroundings, including my love of local colonial and Victorian architecture, cityscapes, rural landscapes, historical sites, cottage gardens, nature, and the enchantment of nearby riverside and lakeside towns.
My contemporary art quilts and photographs have won awards, and my work is exhibited in juried art shows, quilt shows and galleries nationwide.
My work has appeared in several publications, including:
1000 Quilt Inspirations (2015, Quarry Books)
500 Art Quilts (2010, Lark Books)
The Quilting Arts Book (2008, Interweave Press)
Innovative Fabric Imagery for Quilts (2008, C&T Publishing)
Life in the Finger Lakes magazine (Summer 2007 issue) – featured my artwork in their “Off the Easel” section (see article below)
Quilting Arts magazine (Summer 2005) – cover artwork
International Quilt Festival’s 2004 Chicago show brochure
St. John’s University alumni brochure, Conversatio, 2004 – cover artwork
Here are photographs of my art quilts on display in some of my exhibits:
Baltimore Woods Nature Center, Marcellus, NY, February 2010 – Solo show: “Paintings With a Fabric Palette”
Delavan Art Gallery, Syracuse, NY, 2009 – Group Exhibit: “Painting With a Fabric Palette”
I have also written articles for Quilting Arts magazine, and my art quilts have been included in several slide presentations given by other fiber artists in the U.S. The Alliance for American Quilts included me in their “Quilters’ – Save Our Stories” interviews. You can read my interview here.
My artwork has been purchased by admirers in Canada, Singapore and various locations across the U.S.
In 2008, I was chosen to represent NY’s 25th Congressional district to paint an ornament for the White House Christmas tree. Click on the images of the ornaments on the left to view them larger.
