Cherie St. Cyr was born in New Orleans and received a degree from Indiana University in 1980. She moved to Madison in 1981. She studied glass with Steve Feren from 1986 until 1991 when she began silk painting and experimenting with fiber. In 1993-94 she worked as a guest artist in a silk painting factory in Kathmandu, Nepal. The print and dye professor at the UW-Madison saw her exhibit of quilts at the Education Library and recruited her to teach a silk painting module in the Textile department at the University of Wisconsin. She then began a 2 year immersion in surface design at the UW-Madison.
Currently all of her work begins as a bolt of white fabric. She adds color and texture sometimes returning more than three or four times to color a piece of cloth. From this vast stash of fabrics she creates her art. She is inspired by the work of the African American artists in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Cherie is the most represented artist at the University of Wisconsin hospital where more than 125 of her quilts are on display. She works in her studio on the near east side of Madison and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where she winters.
