Coulter Fussell was born and raised in Columbus, Georgia, an old textile town situated on the Chattahoochee River, on the eastern border of Alabama. The culture of Columbus and the surrounding river valley—including the neighboring military base of Fort Benning, housing Infantry and Airborne—play a significant role in Coulter’s work. Fussell’s father was an art museum curator throughout her childhood while her mother is a life-long quilter and educator. Running through museum galleries on any given day after school and then going home to watch her mother sew for hours was standard. The combination resulted an early-developed arts view where craft and other arts are indistinguishable from one another. Painting, sculpture, and textile work became one solitary entity in her mind. From youth, the combination developed into an unintentional mash-up. Fussell relies on the no-holds barred nature of contemporary painting rules to free her compositions from the constraints of pattern. In turn, she simultaneously relies on the strict discipline of traditional craftwork to act as a self-editing tool.

She now lives in Water Valley, a small town in the northern Hill Country of Mississippi. There, she runs her store and studio, Yalorun Textiles. Having been in the service industry for most of her life, Coulter is also a waitress in the neighboring town of Oxford, Mississippi. Fussell lives in Water Valley with her two young sons, Amos Henry and Booker, and their cat Janet.