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March Issue 2006
Wilkes Art Gallery in North Wilkesboro, NC, Features Exhibits Celebrating the Craft of Furniture Design and Fiber Arts
The Wilkes Art Gallery in North Wilkesboro, NC, is offering the following exhibitions: Furniture and Fibers features wearable fibers by Neal Howard and Liz Spear, tapestry weavings by Sandy Adair and furniture by Blaine Johnston and A Stitch in Time featuring heirloom and contemporary quilts by Nellie Becknell Owens. The exhibits will be on display through Mar. 25, 2006.
Blaine Johnston
Blaine Johnston is a native of Wilkes County currently residing in Waynesville, NC. He writes, "Coming from three generations of furniture makers, I feel that creating furniture must be in my blood. I enjoy making furniture. I enjoy using furniture. I enjoy people. I want people to get the same enjoyment when looking at and using my furniture. I am drawn to wood because of the variety of warm tones, colors, and grain patterns. I am also drawn to metal because of its strength and the various processes of working it. Some of these processes are as high tech as laser cutting, or as old and basic as forging with a fire, hammer and anvil. I am drawn to the beautiful and powerful contrast when metal and wood are combined."
Liz Spear
Liz Spear and Neal Howard also reside in Waynesville, NC. They often collaborate to create one-of-a-kind hand-woven wearables. Spear writes, "I weave fabric, then sew garments, using this cloth. I earn my living, working at this full time. I make a regular line of women's garments, and it evolves, slowly, with new fabrics and new colors each year".
Spear continues, "Neal Howard, a scarf weaver and dyer extraordinaire, began giving me small endcuts of her scarf fabrics. We share a craft fair booth because our work looks so good together. I got the idea to combine our work, and pieced some of her fabric into one, then more of my garments. Several years ago, Laura Sims, a marbeling artist in Bakersfield, NC, asked me to do a piece incorporating some of her marbeling into one of my handwoven garments to be used in a book she was writing. It worked, and we continued to do several pieces together each season. Somewhere along the road it occurred to me that while I work alone, for the most part, that incorporating other artists' work into mine was pumping new excitement into all of my work. I couldn't rationalize taking time to do any dyeing of yarn, or to learn new surface design techniques like marbeling, but I could work with others, and their expertise combined with mine could become something wonderful."
Sandy Adair lives in
Boone, NC. She is a celebrated tapestry weaver.
Adair offers the following about her work, "My intention,
whenever I am weaving is to create sacred, peaceful places, microcosms
that one may enter for replenishment. I seek to express our connection
with the enduring, but constantly changing beauty of our earth,
whether the weaving is abstract or representational. Tapestry
weaving is a meditative process for me. It is much like painting,
with yarns as my palette and needles as my brushes. Primarily
a colorist, I am enticed by the lushness of the earth. I continue
to explore its ever changing moods of light and color. I work
to accomplish this through subtle blendings, using a wide variety
of fibres, colors and textures. For me, harmonious use of color,
line and texture communicate the balance and sensuousness that
I experience in landscapes."
Howard, Spear, and Adair are members of the Southern Highlands Craft Guild.
A Stitch in Time, is an exhibit of a lifetime of quilting by Nettie Becknell Owens. In a biography about Owens, her daughter Pat Bumgarner writes, "In 2006, Nettie Becknell Owens will celebrate both her 90th year and a lifetime of quilting. She was born in Owsley County, KY, on Apr. 10, 1916. Her family traveled back and forth between a farm in Southeastern Kentucky and Cincinnati, OH, during her childhood years. She learned the art of quilting from an early age from her mother, Martha Ball Becknell, who was quite an accomplished quilter herself. Martha quilted for Mary McElwain's Quilt Shop in Walworth, WI. While Nettie was living at home, she and her mother quilted a number of quilts together that were used at home on the beds and to wrap trunks and furniture for travel. They used whatever fabrics were readily available, and there was a quilt in the frames at all times".
Over the years Owens has made numerous quilts. She is a traditional quilter, but she has never hesitated to add her own creative touches. Sometimes she purchased fabric to make quilts of consistent design and color, and sometimes she made sampler or album quilts with each square different. Owens has also made lots of quilted pillows. She would often try out a design and color combination for a full-sized quilt by making a pillow to see how she liked it.
Owens had a number of quilts catalogued by the North Carolina Museum of History in their North Carolina Quilt Project in 1985-86. Although she has enjoyed showing her quilts to family and friends over the years, this is the first time that her quilts have been shown in a gallery exhibition."
The Wilkes Art Gallery is a non-profit visual arts organization dedicated to providing quality educational experiences through exhibits, classes, workshops and field trips for all ages. WAG promotes art as a necessary and enriching component of a well-rounded life.
For further information
check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the gallery
at 336/667-2841 or at (www.wilkesartgallery.org).
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