Bisa Butler ’04 Featured on Craft in America’s EAST

Montclair State University Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) alumna Bisa Butler is featured in Craft in America’s EAST episode, which is part of the Peabody Award-winning documentary series on PBS. The episode is  now streaming and premieres on December 19 on PBS.

Bisa Butler is a New Jersey-born and based artist renowned for her vibrant quiltwork. Butler crafts portraits that illuminate the significant contributions and unique viewpoint of the Black community. Butler views her quilts as celebrations of Blackness and vital historical correctives, offering powerful opportunities to tell stories from a long-underrepresented perspective. Her subjects are often ordinary individuals, whose names and stories have been historically overlooked, sometimes captured in faded family portraits or by itinerant photographers. Butler’s artistic journey began with painting studies at Howard University, later evolving to incorporate fabric into her practice during her MFA at Montclair University. They include West African wax prints, kente cloth, and Dutch wax prints, each carrying rich and complex ties to African history. Her innovative approach has earned her widespread acclaim, leading to exhibitions across the United States since the early 2000s.