Leigh Bartenstein is a textile artist based in Richmond, VA. Her background is in painting and printmaking. In 2020 she bought her first sewing machine and fell in love with quilting.

Leigh makes improvisational quilts without a pattern. Her work is machine-pieced and hand-quilted, using secondhand fabrics — either thrifted or from her own closet. By using repurposed fabrics, piecing quilts intuitively, and quilting by hand, she hopes to infuse her textiles with evidence of their own making.

Quilting allows her to play with color and create a personal visual language. She sees her quilts as paintings with fabric.