Textile Art

Artists Describing Their Art:

Margo Styan - There is a great need for peace and tranquility in the world today. Every living being can testify to this. We must stop, look, listen, and meditate upon all the wondrous things that the Creator has provided for our well being and growth. My art is intended to help those who stop for a while to look and then listen to their own inner beatings of their heart which urges them to meditate and discover truth for themselves and help them "grow and develop and appear in the utmost beauty". I believe we all have a gift that needs to be discovered and offered to this existence, and thus peace and tranquility can be found....

Stephanie Ford Forrester - Where does it come from? Why does one artist paint dark, disturbing images and another make art of transcendent light and beauty? What motivates the incredibly unique expressive mode of each individual artist? Life experience, external influences, serendipity, magical moments, receptivity, the minutia of life: all these combine to drive the artist to make art. I am very intrigued by the wonderful sensations and ideas that come out of left field, little glimmers of perception that happen on the periphery of my vision and awareness that evolve either instantly or over time to take physical form as paintings and fabric work. Be they the ephemeral, shifting colours and rhythms of the sea, the intensity in a person's face, or the ancient mythologies and symbols locked in the carved stone of past centuries, these are images that have worked themselves sideways into my mind and refuse to leave. Sometimes they come unbidden, charting their own course until set free in visual form. The journey of the creative process is very personal to each artist; we must allow our minds to be receptive to gentle peripheral influences as well as the powerful, 'in- your- face' immediate ones. The very materials one ...

Helen Simon - Creating expressions of gratitude for the glory of God are the focus of my work. I'm very hyper, and not content with working in one medium for long, so get it (my art) while you can. My various media include, but are not limited to, painted/dyed/quilted textiles, realistic painting in oils/acrylic/watercolor, herbal creations (soaps, lotions, potpourri) from my garden, and most lately and passionately, GLASS!! I've learned to make a pretty good-looking bead at the torch, and would live behind it, but for life's duties. Original needleweavings include my Glassies and I love making custom orders, to challenge & inspire. Satisfaction is guaranteed!...

Diana Corcan - Poetry and the poetry of objects. As in the poetry I write, the tendency to express myself artistically implies a dual nature. An inner primitive kind -- who yearns for the simplicity of former emotions, and a nature containing a perverted, sophisticated side, in which the influence on the aesthetic is done through an emotion compromised by the mundane. The desire of permanent return to our unperverted state, to a zero point, expressed in my poetry, manifests also in the textile objects I make, through the option for natural materials. The run between light and darkness, between color and non-color comes from the desire of an equilibrium point. It comes from the attempt to support my own feelings on a skateboard, activated in permanence by the power of feelings in motion. The acrobacy of emotion is what draws the object, builds it, animates it and settles its destination. ...

Jean Judd - Every quilt tells a story and every quilt is unique. The common factor in all quilts is that fabric and thread are used to create a piece of art. To many viewers, cutting up perfectly good pieces of fabric into little pieces and then sewing them together again into a totally different looking piece of fabric, is unbelievable. Who would want to do this day in and day out The dedicated quilt artist and fabric collector I have always enjoyed putting jigsaw puzzles together and the same person who enjoys jigsaw puzzles discovering a finished masterpiece constructed of hundreds or even thousands of little pieces is drawn to the magic of quilt design. Each quilt design is a puzzle waiting to be put together. The design starts in the quilt artists mind and is eventually transferred into reality with the final stitch in the quilt. Many times the original design is nothing like the finished quilt but this just adds to the excitement and the design potential for the next quilt design. What starts in the mind is often transformed into a bigger, better and more dramatic finished quilt than the artist ever imagined. I prefer to make my own ...