FIBER AND BEYOND

June 27th - August 28th, 2022

Latimer Textile and Quilt Center
Tillamook, Oregon

Native American themes, Nature Photography, Original Fabric Designs

Art inspired by Native American button blankets, nature photography, wildlife, Japanese kimono and vintage magazine illustrations are among the pieces created by 24 Olympic and Kitsap peninsula fiber artists for the June 27-Aug. 28 “Fiber & Beyond” exhibit at the Latimer Textile & Quilt Center in Tillamook, OR (latimerquiltandtextile.com).

The 58 pieces by members of Peninsula Fiber Artists (sda-np.com) included silk painting, weaving, necklaces, bracelets, art quilts, felted masks, quilted bowls, Sashiko and non-traditional embroidery and original fabric designs. Some were created especially for this exhibit; others have been shown across the U.S. at such juried exhibits as the QuiltCon, AQS QuiltWeek, Quiltfest, Contemporary Quilt Association, International Quilt Festival and American Craft Council shows,  as well as at LaConner’s Pacific Northwest Quilt & Fiber Arts Museum, the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and the Port Townsend Wearable Art Show.

Highlights of the exhibit included:

  • Port Townsend artist and Jamestown S’Klallam elder Celeste Kardonsky Dybeck’s “Kardonsky Family Tree Button Blanket,” which honors the family created by her Port Angeles parents, the late Walt and Dee Swanberg Kardonsky, and “John the Owl Button Blanket,” both inspired by Native American button blankets. Dybeck collaborated with Port Angeles artist Candice Olsen on the images representing each parent and child. 

  • Donna Lark’s “Snowshoe Hare: Lepus Americanus,” a head piece sculpted of merino and finn wool roving, mohair curls and hand dyed silks, and her “Animals in the Landscape,” “Osprey-Pandion Haliaetus” and “Water Is Life.” Active in the Port Townsend art community, Lark recently relocated to Redmond WA. 

  • Felted beads, the basis for Port Townsend artist Janice Speck’s necklaces, which combine the soft wool shapes with ethnic and vintage beads she has collected plus beads dissembled from thrifted jewelry.

Four artists’ pieces used fabric they designed.  

  • Port Townsend’s Caryl Fallert-Gentry will exhibit “On the Wings of a Dream” and “Checks & Balances,” which use fabric she hand dyed or painted, as well as yardage of her designs that was commercially printed and sold by Benartex. 

Original designs that were digitally printed are featured in the pieces by Bainbridge Island’s Donna Lee Dowdney, Chimacum’s Mary Tyler and Sequim’s Linda Carlson.  

  • Dowdney’s “Lava Dreams” and “Lava Rivers” began with acrylic paint poured on canvases that were then photographed by Fallert-Gentry, the images computer-manipulated and then printed on cotton by on-demand digital printer Spoonflower before being enhanced with embroidery, thread painting and other embellishments. 

  • Tyler’s designs begin with computer programs that generate fractals, never-ending patterns. Once created, the fractals are manipulated by her in Photoshop. After the images are sent to Spoonflower for digital printing, she quilts them.  

  • Carlson’s “Faces of the 40s” wearable art was also sewn with fabric printed by Spoonflower, in this case using a design created by the artist from scans of illustrations in actual 1940s magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and Colliers.

 Exhibiting at the Latimer Center are (including those described above):
Donna Lee Dowdney, “Lava  Dreams” and “Lava Rivers” (donnaleedowdney.com)
Carol Roi Olsen, “Second Life” and “Red Door”
Erica Iseminger, “Tripetal,” “Floating Plum Blossoms” and “A Gathering of Stones” (ericaiseminger@instagram.com)
Mary Tyler, “The Next Fire,” “Shadows in Plato’s Cave” and “Rabbit Hole” (mbtyler.net)
Jeri Auty, “Elements” and “Kitchen Sink” (instagram.com/jeriauty)
Joyce Brustad Gordon, “Salish Sea Trio”
Leslie Dickinson, “Crossroods Improv” and “Three Jewels”
Celeste Kardonsky Dybeck, “John the Owl Button Blanket” and “Kardonsky Family Tree Button Blanket”
Caryl Fallert-Gentry, “On the Wings of a Dream” and “Checks & Balances” (bryerpatch.com)
Pat Herkal, “Anthem,” “Tidepool Necklace” and “Tidepool Cuff” (patherkal.com)
Kindy Kemp, “The East Is Red” and “Limelit Blues” (facebook.com/kindy.kemp)
Debra E. Olson, “Light in Flight,” “Camouflaged” and “Beneath the Surface” (itzadebdesign.com)
Janice Speck, necklaces (facebook.com/janice.speck.90)
Cathie Wier, “Look  Deeply,” “Waves,” “Fenestrations 1” and “Fenestrations 2” (cathiewier.com)
Joyce Wilkerson, “Puzzling Jacket” and “Washi Paper & Linen Vest” (joycewilkerson.com)
Linda Carlson, “Faces of the 40s” and “Sunrise” (lindacarlson.com)
Kathie Cook, “Line,” “Portals: Tomb” and “Into the Woods”
Liisa Fagerlund, “Wasatch Autumn,” “Fort Worden Triptych A and B” and “Lakeside in the Rockies”
Lynn Gilles, “Portrait of Bill” and “Minkmorphosis”
Susan Nylander, “Taos Heat Vest,” “Blue Lagoon,” “Transcending Tradition” and “Klimt Nouveau”
Marla Varner, “All the Colors in the Box” and “Crevices” (pennylanequilts.com)
Evette Allerdings, “Solace” and “Unleashed” (evetteallerdingsstudio.com)
Barbara Houshmand, “3D Art” and “Small Quilt”
Donna Lark, “Animals in the Landscape,” “Osprey-Pandion Haliaetus,” “Water Is Life,” and “Snowshoe Hare: Lepus Americanus” (donnalarkfelts.com)