Photo by Mary Beth Korth
Regina Durante Jestrow’s interest in the textile arts, which began when her mother taught her sewing and crocheting as a child, blossomed into a lifelong passion for quilt-making.
The Italian-American, Miami-based artist from Queens, N.Y., builds her cloth-based masterpieces by stitching together long strips of fabric and hundreds of triangles, using repetition, precision and improvisation as guiding forces. Alongside these geometric, abstract and folk art–inspired quilts, Jestrow creates intimate works on paper that reflect her pattern and color sensibilities.
“I was always good at making bags and home goods and enjoyed making myself quilts,” the 47-year-old says. “During COVID-19, I did a deep dive into quilt history and communicating political ideas.”
This led to a series the artist created called “Americana Quilts,” in which she used 50 fabric colors to represent the diverse skin tones of America’s population. To expand her creative range, Jestrow applied for, and was awarded, a grant to purchase a long-arm sewing machine, enabling her to create larger, more intricate works.
She has also started experimenting with hand dyeing and natural dyes.
“Now, I use reactive dyes,” Jestrow says. “They’re more stable and more lightfast, with a larger variety of colors.”
Her work reflects her Miami surroundings through fabrics covered in glitter and sparkles, such as quinceañera dresses, along with silk, leather and leopard-print vinyl from thrift shops. Everyday items also make their way into her designs, like pill bottles and fabric scraps from The Things Lab, a collaborative art and community space in Miami.
Jestrow’s pastel color palette is nature-oriented and shaped in part by her botanist husband, Brett Jestrow. For inspiration, she looks to politically active women artists like Rosie Lee Tompkins, an African-American quilt-maker whose work The New York Times once called “one of the century’s major artistic accomplishments.”
This year promises to be a busy one for Jestrow. Her solo show, “Curious Geometries,” is running at Miami International Airport through March 9, and is followed by an exhibit at the Dallas Art Fair in April. An exhibition at Ivester Contemporary gallery in Austin is scheduled for September. It’s a fitting moment for an artist fueled by curiosity and purpose, stitching warmth and meaning into every piece.