Valarie Jean Bailey, RECIPIENT OF THE 2005 ZIG AWARD

NOMINATOR'S STATEMENT
Valarie Jean was a long-time employee of the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development, working her way from an entry-level position to staff analyst, while raising a child as a single mother. Her outspoken advocacy for grass roots community programs developed at the local level rather than imposed from the top down led to conflicts with her supervisors, who let her go after twenty-eight and a half years of service with only a minimal pension.

The loss of her position with the city made it impossible for Valarie Jean to stay in the metropolitan area, and she had to make a new beginning. She had always been interested in art, and, while working for the city, devoted what free time she had, first to painting and later to quilting. Taught to sew as a young child by an aunt, Valarie Jean developed a unique style of making quilts, creating her own fabric and incorporating photographs, three-dimensional flora and other embellishments, together with dyes, paints and patterns, to tell a visual story.

She relocated to North Carolina where she is using all of her skills as a consultant, community organizer and arts advocate to design, exhibit and teach the art of traditional and contemporary quilts and folk crafts. She is a member of Artspace Artists Association and a member of the Artspace Board of Directors. As a professional quilt and doll maker, her work has appeared in gallery exhibitions and quilt shows throughout the country. In 2003 Valarie Jean was honored by the African American Atelier and Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, North Carolina with a one-woman show entitled "Ancestral Quilts: An African-American Female Perspective."

Link to her art work: http://www.artspacenc.org/artists/bailey.html

2008 The Zig Award Recipient

2007 The Zig Award Recipient

2006The Zig Award Recipient

2004 The Zig Award Recipient