Fine Craft Shows at Chautauqua July 12–14 & August 9–11, 2024
My fiber work is framed and matted. I have two bodies of work: stitched paintings and paintings in fiber. • The stitched paintings combine painted silks and free-motion machine embroidery. As the first step in a multi-step process, I paint different weaves of pure silk. Then, using my forty year-old (non-computerized!) sewing machine as a drawing tool, I blend and mix colors by layering threads. I create painterly effects through thousands of stitches and achieve rich textures by fluidly and continually shifting the fabric under the rapidly moving needle. •Paintings in fiber are a combination of dyed and hand-painted silks, layering and needle-felting. Each shade of color is a different piece of fabric. I assemble the work without adhesives or stitching; I use barbed needles, traveling over and through the multiple layers in order to tangle the fibers, fuse the fabrics and blend the colors. I may add details with free-motion embroidery and/or with bobbin embroidery.