A Pop of Color

EMILY DVORIN

I call myself a sculptural basketmaker. I am known for my innovative, “transordinary” vessels. Challenging the original definition of basketry, I explore contemporary interpretations of this traditional craft, utilizing non-traditional materials.

I transform the ordinary through the processes of manipulation, construction, alteration, repetition of singular elements, coiling, weaving and assembling to create dense arrangements ofcommon, urban objects. I sculpt with fiber and interact with material, pattern, color, design, shape and texture.

My use of re-purposed, re-contextualized materials is commentary on overconsumption of commercial goods, societal excess and throwaway consumerism. My work references everyday life and our relationship with our urban environment. I use the vessel form with an emotional and personal visual vocabulary to speak about life’s issues. Color and texture, whimsy, exuberance, optimism, and a sometimes-edgy approach, always enter into my work.

Biography: Emily is a self-taught, award-winning fiber artist who lives in Kentfield, CA. She grew up in New Jersey in the 50s, a child of an intellectual family. Her father was a psychiatrist, and her mother was a high-school teacher. Growing up, she was told her creativity and artistic approach were "cute".

In college in the 60s, Emily majored in foreign languages (Spanish, French and Italian) because that felt more appropriate to her parents than art did. She got married and went to graduate school for her Masters in Teaching, and then taught third grade for four years until she left to start a family. Her husband's job took her and her family to California in the 70s, where they settled in Marin County. Art and music remained a part of her life during this time--she sang in a Community Chorus, and in the mid-70s, partnered with a friend to open Various & Sundries, a contemporary crafts store in San Anselmo, California. She did a lot of macramé – it was the 70s, after all – it and discovered an enduring fondness for fiber art.

In the early 80s, she took a basket workshop in the basement of the old Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, and her life was forever changed. She had an "a-HA!" moment and realized that basketry and three-dimensional work were what she truly loved. Emily had little formal art training, other than workshops here and there, including four years in a "Fiber Sculpture" studio class. She learned traditional techniques this way, but then branched out into her own innovations. Still a teacher after all these years, as well as a learner, Emily began offering workshops of her own to adults and going into 3rd-8th grade school classrooms to bring the joy of basketry to a wider audience.

Flarf

In 2008, after owning and operating Various & Sundries for 35 years, and enabling other artists to gain wider audience and appreciation for their work, Emily retired to live her life's dream of being a full-time artist. She now has a studio in Sausalito, California. She continues to teach classes for both adults and children, and she speaks, consults and exhibits all around the country.

                                                                                               

 

BARBARA  MURAK

Red Vessel

Ever since I was a young child, I have found pleasure in using fabric, yarn and thread for creative expression. As a mixed media fiber artist, I enjoy using traditional methods like knitting and stitching to create contemporary shapes, and find the long hours meditative and rhythmically soothing. I am fascinated with repetition of shape and line in nature, and strive to convey similar layering, symmetry, and contrast of texture in my sculptural forms and vessels.

Biography:

Barbara is a mixed media fiber artist whose work reflects a life-long preoccupation with the “stitch” (from early childhood hand embroidery and knitting stitches to intensive machine stitching) as a sculptural element to create complex textures and forms.

My parents and grandparents were artists, and in my studio I find comfort in the silent dialogue with my ancestors by surrounding myself with their sewing implements, paint brushes and heirlooms. I find connection to my great grandmother when I look up and see her tiny hand stitches in the 1800’s quilt that drapes over my studio wall.

My interest in fiber techniques has changed and evolved since I first began exhibiting in juried shows in 1974.  It has been a process of building upon previous experiences and works to expand and develop new ways of creating. Over the years, I have exhibited paintings, batiks, fabric collages, art quilts, thread paintings, knitted sculptural forms and hand-embroidered dimensional pieces.

Recent explorations of the sculptural possibilities of fabric as container/vessel have fostered spiritual awareness and personal insight.  The theme of memory and fragility, found both in nature and relationships, is a reoccurring direction in my work.  The cutting of fabric, textural layering, and the construction process is always challenging as is life; and I find the long hours of stitching meditative, rhythmically soothing and therapeutic.

After earning a M.S. in Creative Art Therapy, I am currently an Artist-in-Residence at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, creating artwork bedside with patients or in waiting areas with family and caregivers to help relieve their stress and anxiety.  Many projects involve textile arts with several patient-made quilts currently hanging in the hospital.

In addition to numerous national and international exhibitions, my artwork is represented in public and private collections in the United States as well as Canada, China, South Korea, The Philippines, Europe, Australia, South Africa and India.

                  



                                                                                      
            

PAMELA A. MACGREGOR

Purple Couture

My life as an artist has taken many turns over the years. Artist as student, artist as teacher and now retired teacher as felt artist. Since my retirement,the discovery of felting has charged me with a new artistic energy. I find the versatility and engineering possibilities for each project both mentally and physically stimulating. At the end of the day, there is usually a sweet surprise, an “ah ha” moment of inspiration giving me insight for future felt works, bringing with it new and unique possibilities.

Bio:
A retired art teacher living just outside of scenic Grand Rapids, Ohio on a small farm, MacGregor has become impassioned with traditional wet felting.  She finds traditional felting energizing in its versatility and the medium pushes her into constant and exciting engineering challenges. She has been teaching felting classes in her studio as well as classes throughout the United States and Europe.  Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. http://www.tarveycottagestudio.com/

                   
                                        

   

                                                                                       

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