Joyce R. Becker
A Prize-winning quilter, Joyce R. Becker focuses her art, writing, teaching and lecturing on landscape quilts. Joyce’s books, Quick Little Landscape Quilts, Beautifully Embellished Quilts, and Luscious Landscapes were published by C&T Publishing. Joyce’s DVD, Joyce Becker Teaches You Landscape Quilting, is informative, educational and entertaining. Joyce has made appearances on: QUILTING ARTS TELEVISION with Susan Bruebaker Knapp, The Quilt Show with Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson, Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson, and M’Liss’s World of Quilts. She was also featured on a promotional DVD for the Tsukineko Company. Joyce was a founding board member of the Association of Pacific Northwest Quilters and has volunteered throughout her region. Her quilts have been displayed internationally in contests and invitational exhibits and have appeared in books, magazines, and on television. Joyce’s works has been featured in many mainstream quilting magazines, including Quilting Arts Magazine. Joyce’s lively sense of humor and positive attitude has resulted in lectures and workshops that inspire, inform, and entertain quilters throughout the world. Joyce has enjoyed teaching on cruises with Quilt Camp at Sea including: a cruise through the Panama Canal, Mexico, Alaska, and the New England coast. She has taught and lectured throughout the United States for guilds and large conferences, including the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas, Empty Spools conference in California, and conferences in Canada and New Zealand. She was a Featured Artist at Quilt Expo in Portland, Oregon in 2016.
Message from Joyce
Quilting and writing have changed my life. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would end up as a professional landscape quilt artist and author. For me, it has never been about fame or fortune but always about the joy of giving back to something that has blessed me in so many ways. Watching the spark of creativity come alive in quilters who thought they could never design and create a landscape quilt is what makes my spirit fill with happiness and joy. To all of you have written me from all over the world thanking me for writing my books and helping you with your creations, it has been my pleasure.
I have some very exciting news to share with you! During the pandemic, I have been creating new quilts and writing a new landscape quilt book for C&T Publishing. It’s publication date is slated for February 2022 and at this point, is titled Beautiful Landscape Quilts.. My new book is perfect for all levels of quilters and includes some new techniques I want to share with you. I am also including the artwork of some of my favorite landscape quilters and I also include informative profiles on them. With the impact of corona virus, teaching and lecturing in person is impossible right now, however, I am working with C&T Publishing and their new platform, The Creative Spark, to hopefully begin teaching a new workshop, titled Quick Little Landscape Quilts, online. I hope to record a second workshop in the next few months based on my new book. I have also recorded a lecture titled Home Decorating With Your Landscape Quilts and hopefully I will have that ready for presentation soon. This lecture also includes dialogue from Joyce talking about some of the techniques used in her quilts. These lectures and workshops can be taught individually or for guilds or exhibits as well. I’ve invested in a big ring light, microphone, and a super duper cell phone for recording. My son, Shawn, has agreed to do the filming for my first workshop and Mike Simmons, my talented step-son who is a photographer and videographer video taped my lecture.
I hope you were able to catch my appearances on Quilting Arts Television with Susan Bruebaker Knapp on PBS Television. I appeared on Series 2100 that aired in 2018, episodes 3, 7, and 12. It was great fun to fly to Cleveland to tape these shows and I created memories I will never forget. I made some life-long friends and working with Susan and the staff was amazing.
Joyce R Becker with Susan Bruebaker Knapp, Taping Quilting Arts Television in Cleveland, Ohio
Please feel free to e-mail me if you have questions or comments about me regarding creating landscape quilts. See Contact page.
Artist Statement
Drawing on my life-long love of nature, my prize-winning landscape quilts encompass a variety of surface design techniques imparting realism. While researching my book, Nature’s Patterns, published by the Quilt Digest Press in 1996, I realized how much I love nature and instead of using traditional methods, it was my desire to create techniques that resulted in original, realistic landscape quilts. I study nature as though I am looking through the lens of a camera, setting up possible landscape scenes in my mind for future reference. My inspirations come from many sources including; photographs, snapshots of gorgeous scenes when I travel that I store in my brain, greeting cards, photography books, calendars, and impressionistic artist, Claude Monet.
The most important part of creating landscape quilts is to create the correct perspective through the use of value and scale: lighter and smaller in the distance and larger and darker in the foreground. My art is accomplished using many surface design techniques including : my original “cut and glue” technique of raw edge machine appliqué, textile painting, stamping, sponging, dyeing, extensive machine embroidery and thread-work, three-dimensional bonding, as well as overlays of tulle and polyester organza for shading and depth. Each landscape is completed using free-motion machine quilting that compliments the design and marries the three-layers together into a cohesive piece. My books, Quick Little Landscape Quilts, Beautifully Embellished Landscape & Luscious Landscapes, Simple Techniques for Dynamic Quilts and my DVD, also published by C&T Publishing, celebrate my methods of creation and feature both my quilts and student work.
Publications
Books & DVDs I’ve written or appeared on or will be available soon
- A new landscape quilt book titled, Beautiful Landscape Quilts, with a publication date in Feb of 2022
- An online workshop titled, Quick Little Landscape Quilts through Creative Spark available soon
- An online lecture through Creative Spark available soon -featuring how I decorate my home with my art including my new quilts featured in my upcoming book, Beautiful Landscape Quilts
- Quilting Arts DVD Series 2100 2018
- A Quilter’s Journey – The Orcas Island Quilt Series – a novel I have written and am currently trying to find an agent or publisher (a series of three novels) Finding a publisher for a niche quilting genre with some romance is very difficult! I may publish it on Amazon.com in the next few months
- Quick Little Landscape Quilts – C&T Publications, 2011
- Joyce Becker Teaches You Landscape Quilting, A DVD – C&T Publications
- Beautifully Embellished Landscape Quilts – C&T Publications, 2006
- Luscious Landscape Quilts – C&T Publications, 2003
- Nature’s Patterns – Inspirations and Techniques for Quilt Makers, by Joyce R. Becker (Lincolnwood, IL, 1996)
- Tsukineko Inc. Educational DVD, co-hosted by Joyce R. Becker
Articles authored by Joyce
- Quilting Arts Magazine Summer 2017 Showcase article on Joyce
- Confessions of a Quiltaholic Ongoing Column, The Kent Reporter Newspaper, 2010 (around ten issues)
- $100,000 Quilting Challenge Magazine, Issue 4, 2006, Celebrating Nature With Landscape Quilts by Joyce R. Becker
- Quilting Arts Magazine- Fall 2004, Page 88, “Expand your Horizons – Landscape Techniques” by Joyce R. Becker.
- American Quilter’s Society Magazine Spring 2001, the Talents of Sonia Grasvik by Joyce R. Becker
- Quilt Magazine, Winter 1996, page 37, Confessions of a Quiltaholic Column – Name that Quilt, by Joyce R. Becker, text and photo, Purple was her Favorite Color
- Quilters Newsletter, Issue #262, May 1994, page 27, Merry-Go-Round Quiltmaking by Joyce R. Becker
- Lady’s Circle Patchwork Quilts, Issue 117, April 1997, Page 61, The Elements: Earth Wind, Fire & Chocolate – a Thematic Exhibition Shows Its Unique Personality by Heather W. Tewell, photo, The Goddess of the Wind, by Joyce R. Becker
- The Art Quilt Magazine, issue #8, 1997, page 41, Cutting Edge Quilts and Technology, by Joyce R. Becker
- Quilt Magazine, Spring 1995, page 34, 104-105, A Quilter’s Silent Passage by Joyce R. Becker, text and photo
- The Valley Daily News, October 1995, feature article with byline – Evergreen Piecemakers Annual Quilt Show, by Joyce R. Becker
- Country Quilts, Winter 1995, page 48, 114, Dare to Dream, by Joyce R. Becker
- Seattle Magazine, August 1994, page 17, Putting the Pieces Together, text and quotes.
- Quilt World, July 1994, page 55, Spreading the Word about APNQ, by Joyce R. Becker
- The Quilting Quarterly, Spring 1994, Vol. 23, No. 1, page 18-19, the Birth of a Regional Quilt Show, by Joyce R. Becker, text and photos
- Quilt Almanac, 1993, page 24, 114, A Whimsical Quilter- Breaking Away From Tradition, by Joyce R. Becker
Articles and Books featuring Joyce and her art
- Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting, “Art of Quilting – July/August 2008 issue, Page 34, How Does Your Garden Grow” River Walk by Joyce R. Becker
- Innovative Fabric Imagery – A Digital Exploration in Quilting by Cyndy Lyle Rymer and Lynn Koolish, C&T Publishing, Fall 2007, featuring Clover Lake by Joyce R. Becker
- All About Machine Arts – Decorative Techniques from A to Z, C&T Publishing, 2004, studio Page 33, Free motion stitching Page 154
- Celebrate the Tradition, by C&T Publishing, 2003, contributing cover block, Quilt & text, page 56, block & directions, Page 127
- South County Journal Newspaper, August 5, 2002, Quilter Finds Inspiration in Nature by Mary Swift, Journal Reporter
- More Snippet Sensations by Cindy Walter, Fall 2000 – Heceta Head Celebration, Page 68 & Awakening, Page 9 by Joyce R. Becker
- The Art Quilt Magazine, issue #9, 1998, Page 33, The Elements – Earth, Wind, Fire & Chocolate featuring Goddess of the Wind by Joyce R. Becker, by Heather W. Tewell text
- No Big Deal, by Deborah L. White published by That Patchwork Place, Bothell, WA 1997, Page 21 Mini-Victory by Joyce R. Becker, photo, forward acknowledgements and hand-quilting on several of Ms. Whites’ pieces
