Deborah Kuster

Deborah Kuster (Ph.D.) earned her BA in Fine Art with a minor in Education (1975), a MA in Interdisciplinary Studies (1997), and a PhD in Art Education with an emphasis in Museum Studies, Multiculturalism, and Learning Theories (2004) from the University of North Texas. Her career in art education included teaching in a wide range of schools, museums, and community organizations in Texas and Arkansas. In 2019, she retired from the University of Central Arkansas as a respected Professor of Art Education after a 16-year tenure of helping prepare future art teachers. In 2020, she was named Professor Emeritus of Art at the University of Central Arkansas.

Kuster’s textile art is her visual interpretation of the lingual. Her work has been widely exhibited and published locally, nationally, and internationally. A few of her numerous exhibitions include: Studio Art Quilts Associates Global Exhibition, Camouflaged, traveling exhibition (2024-2027); Studio Art Quilts Associates Global Exhibition, Beyond the Mirror, traveling exhibition (2020-2023); Form, Not Function at the Carnegie Center for Art and History, New Albany, IN (2021, 2018); Southern Voices: A Studio Art Quilt Associates (LA/MS/AR/AL) Exhibition of Contemporary Art Quilts at the Gadsden Museum of Art and History, Gadsden, AL (2014); the Delta Exhibition, Arkansas Fine Art Museum, Little Rock, AR (2014, 2010, 2008); Arkansas Women to Watch Exhibition, traveling exhibit, sponsored by the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (2013); and many more. Kuster also authored and illustrated the children’s picture book, Jake the Deer-Hearted, published by Kharis Publishing in 2022.

I create my two- and three-dimensional art by piecing my own hand-woven textiles. I am free to weave without knowing how or when it will be used and piecing provides the means for more complex color and pattern combinations than my traditional loom allows. I am always amazed how past weavings will fit into new creations in ways I could have never predicted. My work is diversely influenced by weaving traditions such as the Kente cloth by the Ashanti of West Africa and the Mayan traditions of the Americas along with later American artists Anni Albers and Faith Ringgold. I create my art in response to the lingual such as Scripture, favorite authors, and even my grandchildren. Each work holds layers of labor, challenge, memory, and meditation. – Deborah Kuster