Bisa Butler (b. 1975) was born in Orange, New Jersey. She studied painting at Howard University, where she earned her MFA. It was toward the end of her graduate program that she took a Fiber Art class, which inspired her to shift her medium from painting to quilting. "As a child, I was always watching my mother and grandmother sew, and they

taught me. After that class [at Howard], I made a quilt for my grandmother on her deathbed, and I have been quilting ever since." Butler earned a master's degree in Art Education from Montclair State University in 2004. She taught art in Newark Public Schools before focusing on her artistic career full time. She now lives and works in Orange, NJ. She has exhibited her work at the Katonah Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the Epcot Center, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and other venues. In 2019 she was a finalist for the Museum of Arts and Design's Burke Prize. During the past year her work has received wide acclaim in national media, including special features in Time Magazine, Vogue, Newcity, and the Chicago Reader.