Artist’s Question, Answered in Fiber

When starting a new piece, artists might ask themselves: What idea is important to communicate? What concept do I want to explore? What emotions do I want to evoke? 

This exhibition presents the artwork of 29 individual artists who explored these themes, answering in their artwork.

The quilts in this exhibit reflect the varied traditions and artmaking methods characteristic of contemporary art quilters. Included are original surface designs on fabric, hand stitching,machine stitching, hand embellishments, applique, and digital printing. Some works are representational. Some are abstract.

SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates), a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt: “a creative visual work that is layered and stitched or that references this form of stitched layered structure.” The vision of SAQA is that the art quilt is universally respected as a fine art medium.

Opening Reception: June 3, 5-7pm • See it first. See it free. This event is open to the public. Come meet your neighbors at this free event!

Artist Statements

Featured Artists:

Bobbi Baugh: Nor Could Our Hands Catch Them

From her studio in DeLand, Florida Bobbi creates collaged textile artworks for exploration of memories, dreams, storytelling and images of the natural world. The works are built from hand-printed fabrics and paper and finished as art quilts.

Gretchen Brooks: Ring the Bell

Brooks’ biology experience has provided a wealth of inspiration for Gretchen’s artistic endeavors, which have ranged from floral design, to outdoor cement and mosaic sculptures.

Kathleen Campau: Sending Kisses by Moonlight 

Campau’s art has been shown extensively in Michigan, the International Quilt Festival, and regional art exhibits in both Florida and Ohio.

Susan Charles: Red Skies, Beauty or Beast

From an early age, Susan has been fascinated by shapes and colors. She developed her craft working at a quilt store in Northern California. Charles says “I wanted to explore what was once a beautiful sunset is now a deadly fire.”

Gabriele DiTota: Double Threat 

Gabriele’s surface design techniques including monoprinting, mark making, dyeing, discharging and screen-printing helps her create the textural and unique fabrics used in her art works.

Mel Dugosh: Who Does Your Stripes? 

Mel specialized in and taught traditional edge turned hand appliqué using predominantly vintage and civil war reproduction fabrics. She only recently discovered art quilting after health and mobility constraints curtailed her traditional quilting craft.

Regina Dunn: Screen Door With A View 

Regina started her artistic journey in 2001 by making traditional quilts. She ventured into the art world by attending workshops, joining art groups, and trying many techniques over the years as she developed a personal style.

Sally Dutko: Urban Jeopardy 

Dutko’s dyed and painted fabrics transform into abstract compositions hinting at subjects through color, texture, line, pattern and typography.

Linda Geiger: Too Many Choices 

Linda has been focusing on textile surface design. Her art is spontaneous rather than premeditated, as she finds inspiration in a piece of hand-dyed fabric and then paints,pieces, and stitches it into a work of art. 

Peg Green: Feeling Exuberant – Somersault 

Green’s projects include a Mongolia-America Friendship Center with weekly adult classes, and a seed distribution project with a demo vegetable garden.

Edith Gross: Brother, Should I Spare a Dime?

Gross expresses herself through art quilting which is her passion, freedom, joy, and voice.

Leslie A. Hall: Mama, Are We There Yet? 

Hall makes fiber art pieces that are shown and exhibited nationally. She lives quietly on Longboat Key, Florida with her husband and cat, Dudley.

Diane Powers Harris: Spirit Owl’s Offering – Solace 

Powers was surrounded by vibrant tropical flowers and vivid sunsets which influenced her early use of exuberant color. She is interested to discover how her art will grow. Will it incorporate strong use of color

Jane Hartfield: Life Is A Cycle 

Hartfield explores the unlimited techniques for applying color and creating unique fabrics, Jane has also found satisfaction in making wearable art. She has a passion for adding color to fabric with fiber reactive dyes and paints.

Linda M. Kim: Creating Love from Despair 

Kim combines her affections for textiles, found and recycled materials, and her concerns as a woman, parent, immigrant and American. She creates art quilts for their inherent storytelling quality and tactile allure.

Angie Knowles: The Same But Different

Knowles works in mixed media, primarily surface design on cotton, silk and rayon. She has explored many different aspects of fiber arts, from clothing construction and hand embroidery to machine knitting and surface design techniques.

Karol Kusmaul: Party Lights 

Kusmaul enjoys making collage art with repurposed fabrics and using raw edge, hand applique. Her work reflects her delight in pattern, contrast and variety.

Deborah Kuster: Why Do You Worry?

Kuster creates her art by cutting, assembling, sewing, and forming her hand-woven textiles into two-and three-dimensional works of art. They are her visual interpretations of the lingual.

Susan Leslie Lumsden: Anclote Answers, Estuarial Quandaries

Susan is known for her rich colorizations, variegated textures and high level of insouciance. Her quilts are sought after and found in public, corporate and private collections.

Sherri Lipman McCauley: Yellow Is Joy 

McCauley works extemporaneously and in the abstract. The serendipity of the paint or dye landing on the fabric dictates the direction of her design. The simple stroke of a geometric shape or the blast of a colorful line ground her work.

Susie Monday: Whirling Past Darkness

Monday’s large textile collage stitched art evokes the culture, stories and landscapes of the Texas Borderlands — the inner creative life of the artist. Working in mixed media on fabric, Susie dyes, screen prints and/or digitally designs much of the fabrics she uses.

Pamela R. Morris: Where Did the Bluewater Go?

Morris is most inspired by the colors of the Master in the small flower petal, the feathers of birds, the magnificent skies and waters outside her home on the Gulf of Mexico. But Pamela arranges them to please herself, usually in simple shapes.

Shannon Marie Pernoud: Sunken Treasures — Gilt-less Pleasures

Shannon stumbled into sewing when gifted with a machine. Having no training, she taught herself by making purses without patterns. Currently, she focuses on her creative art quilt endeavors.

Susan M. Robinson: Have We Crossed the Line?

Robinson has married her love of painting and her passion for quilting, along with her interest in portraits and abstracts into her recent studio works.

Sara Sharp: First Waves, Flattening Curves, Persistent Peaks

Sharp combines her love of nature and years of painting experience and training to create collage art quilts. She paints, pieces, hand prints, and stitches commercial and hand dyed fabrics to make wall hangings showing abstract designs, social concepts, and nature scenes.

Annie Smith: Gray Matter Chaos

Smith is driven by her senses, and from early childhood, she has been intrigued with the visual impact of color and texture. These elements make her spirit soar.

Becky Stack: Weathered Cedar — Beauty on the Marsh

Stack uses fabric, fiber, and a variety of mediums to create pictorial wall quilts.

Beth Frisbie Wallace: Still a mother, sister, friend…

Wallace has created with fabric and thread since a child. As an adult, her love of color, print and texture,and an abundance of fabric scraps from sewing garments collided with the resurgence in quilting following the U. S. Bicentennial.

Marian Zielinski: Breakthrough

Zielinski engages her experience in costume, scenic, and lighting design to create dramatic images and visual stories.

In the Theatre Lobby: Doug Smithwick

Born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1949, I was exposed to abstract art at a very early age. Fortunately  my older brother Bruce, who was born 14 years earlier, is an  accomplished abstract artist. I recall as early as 12 years old  Bruce frequently taking me to museums and art galleries. I  loved Picasso, Mondrian and Kandinsky. When I was 16 my  brother moved to New York City. He found a great apartment  in Greenwich Village. Most of my Summer breaks from school  he would fly me up to stay two or three weeks with him.  In addition to being able to observe his painting I spent hours  walking around the city. Especially enjoyed the Village and  Soho.  

Many people have told me that my work is Mid-century  modern. I love straight edge paintings, my favorite form is the  triangle. I never have a plan when I approach the canvas. I start  with a form and let the canvas dictate where to go from there.  Love color and balance.

In the Member’s Gallery: Illustrations from a Storybook: Amanda Zirzow

Amanda Zirzow captivates viewers with her one-of-a-kind bold and colorful, spectrum-infused paintings. Born in Falls Church, Virginia, just outside of Washington D.C., Zirzow grew up with parents who encouraged scientific exploration and creativity. As a primarily self-taught artist, she paints with a unique interpretation of nature in her own colorful style and composition.

She values informal self-education, surrounding herself with remarkable people, do-it-yourself projects, and creative experimentation. With her passion for art and background in biology, she often brings exacting details of the subjects in her paintings and infuses them with color, a unique style appreciated by collectors worldwide.

• Please note the Alliance for the Arts’ updated gallery and administrative office hours are Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m.

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