If you think that architecture and quilting seem unrelated, think again. Once you experience the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum’s new exhibition, you will never look at a building the same way! “Surface Fabrications,” which opens on December 8, features the work of artists Diane Laundy and Robin Laws-Field.
Diane Laundy brings the eye of a photographer and the design sensibility of the quilter to the skyscraper, where she discovers poetry, playfulness and patterns of beauty and originality. “There is an inherent sense of order and structure in both quilting and architecture,” says Laundy, “that lends itself to the creation of pattern and rhythm. I approach architecture as a fabric to be cut and shaped by my viewfinder, and patterned and embroidered by the world around it.” Laundy presents her creations on archival paper and silk and suspends them from rods hung as quilts are hung.
Robin Laws-Field was searching for a new approach to her fibre art as she zoomed her camera lens in on the textured surfaces of sites she was visiting. She suddenly realized that she had discovered a new way to create abstraction in her work. The images in this exhibition come from sites around the globe and all focus on surfaces: peeling paint on a shutter in Turkey or footprints in the sands of India. She interprets these with a range of media from paint and dye to clay and yarn, always incorporating a threaded needle wending its way through the composition.
Come and be dazzled as these two talented artists show us a new way of looking at the world. “Surface Fabrications” runs from December 8 until February 13, 2016. The official opening event is on Saturday, December 12 from 2 to 4 pm. The Mississippi Valley Textile museum is located at 3 Rosamond St. in Almonte
