Knittingceleste

knittingceleste.com

Celeste Nossiter

I've always loved color and was trained as an abstract painter. But once I discovered Fair Isle and stranding techniques in knitting, a whole new world of creativity opened up to me.  

My love of world travel has led me to study ethnic knitting motifs and their inter-connectedness through historic trade routes. After my first visit to Turkey I fell in love with both Ottoman and tribal textiles as well as the open-heartedness of the people. I love translating ethnic textile motifs into knitted patterns and experimenting with color. My other love is teaching knitting and encouraging the artist in each of us to come out and play.

Artist's statement:  My goals are:  to inspire other knitters to experiment with color and pattern to create their own unique designs; to translate traditional ethnic motifs into knitted patterns and publish them in a variety of media.

I am available to travel to teach workshops on Intro to Stranded Knitting, Designing your Own Vest, Interpreting Ethnic Motifs into Knitting Designs and Knitting a Turkish-inspired Stranded Hat. I can also work with your yarn to design sale-able knitting patterns.

Location:  Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Memberships:  Dropped Stitch Knitting Guild

Social Media:  Ravelry

Languages spoken:  English, French, some Spanish, learning Turkish

Knitting classes and designs by Knittingceleste.

Tags:  Turkish textiles; stranded knitting; Fair Isle; Central Asian textiles; suzanis; kilim rugs; Ottoman embroidery; Islamic art

Las Rancheritas

 

http://www.charlottebell.com/rugs/

Las Rancheritas is a rug hooking cooperative in a rural village high in the mountains of central Mexico.  Their folk art designs are of the life around them: chickens, pigs, mountains, cactus, farming and whatever their imagination creates. The wool used to make their rugs is donated from rug hooking groups throughout the USA and Canada. Sales from the rugs are contributing to a higher standard of living in this subsistence farming community.

Las Rancheritas, a rug-hooking cooperative from Central Mexico.

Mission:  To provide funds to a financially disadvantaged community and promote self esteem through development of a craft.



Location:  Agustin Gonzales, Guanajuato, Mexico
Online shop:  Las Rancheritas
Blog:  http://lasrancheritas.posterous.com/
Memberships: Association of Traditional Hooking Artists
Languages spoken:  English, Spanish 

Hooked Rug by Las Rancheritas
"The Mending is Very Heavy"

Tags:  hooked rugs, primitive hooked rugs, rural Mexican craft cooperative, folk art, economic development, fair trade, recycled, eco

Dakini Dreams / Bonnie Clark

 

www.DakiniDreams.com

After a lifetime of living all over the US and traveling all over the world, experimenting with ceramics, printmaking, collage, and mixed media, I’ve finally settled in Santa Fe, NM and returned to the world of fiber and textile art.  My current focus is on needleweaving and tapestry weaving although I’ll be the first one to admit that I’m easily distracted by bright, shiny beads. 

A lifelong interest in indigenous cultures and ethnic / tribal art originally led me to maskmaking and this same interest has been instrumental in my studies of ethnic textiles.  Living in the Southwest provides a daily reminder of the role indigenous cultures and their artwork plays in our lives.  Inspiration for new pieces is there every time I walk out the door and see the architecture, the mountains, the desert, and a sky that can only be found in the Southwest.  I try to capture a little bit of this world in each of my weavings through design, color palette, and choice of focal stones and beads.

Artist's Statement:  My art is an exploration of the importance of change and releasing the past, especially the people and situations that hinder personal growth, empowerment and transformation.  The utilization of mythic figures, archetypes, motifs and themes allows me to explore letting go of the familiar, safe and secure in order to travel to the dark, often frightening, places of the soul.  In this way, I’ve learned to trust my inner voice and honor my soul’s need for expression and challenge. 

As a fiber / textile artist, printmaker and collage / mixed media artist, I use layers of digital images, ink, paint, handmade paper, ephemera, beads, textiles, fibers and glass to create pieces in which some of the images remain visible while others become fragmented, distorted, veiled or buried.  The resulting piece is complex and multi-layered in the same way that life is complex and multi-layered.  True understanding comes with being able to envision what is below the surface.

The imagery, taken from mythology, fairytales and the Tarot, requires a level of introspection… an inward journey and a willingness to face both the positive and negative aspects of life, human experience, personality and the world.  As a result, the process of creation becomes an excavation of self.  During this inward journey, questions arise regarding spirituality, aging, feminism, visibility, and aesthetics.  What should remain visible and what should be hidden from view?  How do society and our culture control our perceptions?  How does this perception affect our view of reality and illusion?  I want the viewer to question, explore and discover their own truth.   

Location:  Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA 

Blogs: Dakini Dreams,   Fusion Textile Arts

Social Media:

   Facebook 
   Twitter
   LinkedIn 
   Flickr 
   Google Profile

Memberships:

   Surface Design Association
   Handweavers Guild of America
   American Print Alliance

Languages spoken: English

"Bandelier", Needle Weaving by Dakini Dreams

Tags:  weaving, needleweaving, fiber art, textile art, beadwork, collage, mixed media, tapestry, surface design, embroidery

Angel Fire Designs

"A Pair of Kings" by Patricia Gould (2009, 34" x 43")
www.angelfiredesigns.com

I have exhibited my wall art and my wearable art extensively in the US and abroad. I was invited to exhibit my work at the 2009 Florence Biennale and my quilts have also been exhibited in Taiwan and in Hungary as a result of an artist's residency I was chosen for in 2005. Three of my landscape quilts were purchased by New Mexico Arts for Art in Public Places and my work is in private collections in the US and Europe. My quilts have been published in magazines, books, and exhibition catalogs and I won a Niche Award in 2008 and was chosen as Artist of the Month by the Artist's Magazine in 2003. Two of my quilts are in the online collection of the Library of Congress.

-Patricia Gould

Artist's statement: With a BA in Fine Arts/Art History, and sewing since the age of eight, it’s no surprise that I chose fiber art as my passion in life. A true fabric addict, many different types of fabrics find their way into my quilts and wearable art and I never met a color I didn’t like. Travel was a very important part of my upbringing and my family visited almost all the National Parks in the US and Canada before I was out of school which gave me a deep appreciation for our precious Mother Earth and her creatures. Since 1993, I have been making landscape art quilts, drawing inspiration from trips to China, East Africa, Russia, Antarctica, and extensive travel throughout North America and Europe.

I’m drawn to a few subjects in nature that I find perpetually intriguing by themselves and my voice is whispering a tribute to the incredible beauty in both the subtle and violent forces of nature, only touched by the hand of humans on rare occasions. I’m obsessively drawn to trees, rocks, all forms of water, and animals; I portray these subjects as if they were asking to me to reveal their messages to the world. My fiber pieces are dramatic portraits of Earth and I hope to draw the viewers into these scenes to share the exhilaration I feel and to cherish the wonders of the place we call home.

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Online shop: angelfiredesigns, Angel Fire Textiles

Memberships:

   Studio Art Quilt Associates
   Surface Design Association
   American Craft Council

Languages spoken: English

 "Coastal Symphony" by Patricia Gould (2009, 51" x 37")

Tags: Landscapes, Mixed - Media, Animals, Wildlife, Water, Trees, Impressionist, Inspiring, Light, Nature 

Donna Loraine Contractor

"Koch Snowflake Fractal"  
Univeral Language Series, by Donna Loraine Contractor
www.donnalorainecontractor.com

Donna Loraine Contractor was born in Waukegan, IL and came to New Mexico to attend St. John’s College in Santa Fe. Since she moved to Albuquerque 23 years ago, she has won over 30 art competitions and commissions throughout the state and country. Contractor’s work incorporates the landscapes and colors of New Mexico with bold contemporary architectural frames that create depth and optical illusions. 

The late Douglas Kent Hall, in The Thread of New Mexico, said, “Contractor combines unlikely dynamic forms with a scintillating palette to achieve an evocative and compelling style of weaving. She utilized traditional....concepts as well as certain graphic constructs that fueled the work of many twentieth-century painters and brings to contemporary tapestry a freshness that is sometimes startling.”

Artist's statement: Why do I weave?

First, I love machines. The loom won out over the pottery wheel with the coming of children. Once I walked into a loom room, saw way it looked, the things it could do, its parts, etc., I was hooked. I now own and weave primarily on an AVL professional 8-harness rug loom with a dobby mechanism, pneumatic tensioning system and a worm gear. See how I love the parts!

Next, I love the materials. From the strong smooth cotton warp to the luster of hand-dyed wools and the sparkle of silks, I continue to be enraptured with the feel and look of textiles. I’m becoming captivated by some unusual materials - stainless steels, paper and UV changing fibers. These will find their way into future work.

Color is a source of constant joy for me and I delight in the full range of its use - bold and surprising color combinations and the subtle gradations of a single color. The colors and the unique quality of light in the Southwest, and the diverse forms of its land and sky scapes, make up a rich and diverse palette.

Finally, I love metaphor. The very act of weaving has become metaphor – the web of life, weaving a tale - and is entwined with my choice of imagery and the use of the window set within a frame, a view to another place, another reality as a motif in my work. I try to achieve a blend of the representational and the abstract and to keep a geometrical contemporary feel in the frames.

ABOUT THE WORK

I usually work on several pieces concurrently. The various themes and motifs of the pieces cross-pollinate each other, the patterns and pleasing ratios found all around us: the golden mean, the spiral of a seed head or the placement of branches on a tree The three specific bodies of work that I am working on concurrently are:

The “Architectonic Series” challenges me to create three-dimensional imagery from a two dimensional plane. M.C. Escher and other optical illusion artists inspired me to create surprising architectonic spaces that seem to change just when you feel you’ve figured them out. Hand-dyed and tightly spun wool, with its particular and beautiful light reflecting characteristics produce a texture and luminosity that no pigment on paper could.

The “Universal Language Series” draws from my background in liberal arts at St. John’s College, and my and studies of Chinese mathematical images. It’s a challenge to make clear what mathematical concepts means without words. Circles, curves and fractal patterns explore the concept of nets or webs, all in order to showcase the principles that order our world.

The “Feng Shui Series” is a meditation on color, balanced energy and finessed design, combining symbols found in the I Ching with geometric forms and vivid hues.
Feng Shui, based on the Taoist vision and understanding of nature, particularly on the idea that the environment is alive and filled with influential energy. The colors in the Feng Shui Series are an expression of one of the five Chinese elements: fire, earth, metal, water, and wood. The I Ching symbols describes an ancient system of cosmology and philosophy that is intrinsic to ancient Chinese cultural beliefs, centered on the ideas of the dynamic balance of opposites, the evolution of events as a process, and acceptance of the inevitability of change.

All the pieces in this series celebrate the precision and elegance of geometric forms and formulas and the beauty of color and balance.

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Online shops:  

   Tapestry Gallery

   Weaving Southwest

Blog: Donna Loraine Contractor
Membership: American Tapestry Alliance

Languages spoken: English, and a little Hindi ( My husband is from India)

 "Fractured Squares 3"  

Fractured Squares Series, by Donna Loraine Contractor

Tags: Tapestry, Fine Art Tapestry , Tapestry Artist, Hand woven Tapestry, Southwest, Geometric

Katy Korkos Studio

http://katykorkos.com

I'm a prolific artist who loves to find a way to communicate with others through my work.  I'm looking for collectors and other artists who find that my work speaks to them. The happiest times of my life are when I'm in the studio making something and when I'm out hiking in the mountains getting inspiration to create.

My work is shown at The Johnsons Gallery, Madrid, New Mexico.

Artist's Statement:   Katy Korkos is a long-time Los Alamos resident, and has shown her work regularly throughout New Mexico as well as throughout the United States since the mid-1990s.

Her primary medium is fiber, which encompasses paper as well as textiles. Many of her pieces can be called studio or art quilts, with roots in traditional quilting. Her works on paper are primarily collage or assemblage pieces.

The common theme among much of Katy's recent work is the artist’s fascination with the iconography of birds.

“I often use birds as a design motif in my work because of all the things they symbolize to me: expressiveness, song, flight, beauty, freedom, cages, nesting, the potential in an egg, living in the trees, fragility and  endurance,” Korkos says.

Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA

Online Stores: Katy Korkos
Blog: Katy Korkos
Memberships:

   Studio Art Quilt Associates
   Fuller Lodge Art Center
   Surface Design Association

Languages spoken: English, German, Italian

"Strata" by Katy Korkos

Tags:  layers, hand-dyed, texture, stitches, recycled, worn, birds, cloth, light, collage

Laura Quilligan - Improv Cloth

www.improvcloth.com

I'm a surface designer hand painting silk and velvet garments and scarves. I have been working in this wonderful medium for 10 years and sell my work in galleries and stores. I also do craft fairs, primarily in my town, Taos, New Mexico. I offer my work as a contribution to enhance the well being of each woman who wears an Improv Cloth scarf or garment.  The pieces work well for women who enjoy bold color and seek a timeless, ageless and sizeless look.

I enjoy connecting to other fiber artists, galleries or stores interested in carrying art to wear.  My work is available at Handwoven Originals, Santa Fe, NM; Ammann Gallery, Taos, NM; Artemisia Art to Wear, Taos, NM; Pursuits, Pennsylvania PA.

Artist's Statement:  The artist's job is to help people develop an awareness of our connected reality.  I create wearable art as a contribution to our connection to one another.  When we examine how cloth is made, we see a connection "unfolding"...  Plant or silkworm is connected to weaver and mill. Weaver and mill is connected to seamstress.  Seamstress, weaver and mill are connected to marketplace, and so forth; until cloth finds it's home with someone...  Using juxtapositions of color, line, texture and shape; the artist reveals an alternative viewpoint..  Like an open window letting in fresh air, we breathe in our connection to the beauty in the world. While realizing beauty, people transform their attitude in a positive way.  Thinking positively, each person then contributes to a collective civilized mindstream.  In this way, art is an urgent necessity.

Location:  Taos, New Mexico, USA

Blog:  Improv Cloth
Memberships:  Slow Cloth
Languages spoken: English

  

Hand Painted Top by Laura Quilligan

Improv Cloth Art to Wear on Facebook

Tags:  Hand painted, related editions, hand dyed, accessories, art to wear, clothing

Sharon White

"Weaver's Flock" by Sharon White
http://threebagsfull.biz

Three Bags Full is my sheep ranch and fiber artist’s studio located at Mora, New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, between Las Vegas and Taos. I am very committed to living in tune with nature and causing as little damage to the environment as possible.  My processes are environmentally friendly, I catch rain water and use a biodegradable washing products. I use only natural dyes and when I collect native dyestuffs I am careful to leave enough to keep the stand going.

I have been raising sheep, spinning with a wheel and weaving for over 30 years.
My Mt. d' Oro sheep are basically a closed flock with many generations of carefully selected crosses of Churro, Cotswold and a bit of Corriedale with the goal of producing the ideal wool for rug weaving. They offer the best of the three breeds, and are a medium size sheep with a  double coated fleece.

Artist's Statement:  My weaving has evolved into doing “bound weave” rugs, and I am now concentrating on that process. My aim is to produce a beautiful, durable rug by having control of the entire process, from the sheep to the finished product. I would be pleased to work with you to create an original custom rug. See all my rugs on my website threebagsfull.biz.

Location:  Mora, New Mexico, USA

Online stores:

  Three Bags Full

  Etsy

  Chimayo Weavers

Membership:  Mountain and Valley Wool Association (sponsors the Taos Wool Festival)

  Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center

Language spoken: English

"Celtic Comets" by Sharon White

Tags:  wool, handspun, handwoven, hand dyed, natural dyes,  dyed fibers, custom designs, fiber art, fiber artist, double weave, wool wash

Betty Busby

"Push", 37 x 44", 2009 by Betty Busby
www.bbusbyarts.com

I've made my living as an artist my entire life.

After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design with a major in ceramics, I founded a custom tile manufacturing business in Los Angeles.

I ran it for 18 years, and sold it to move to New Mexico in 1994.
Since my move to the high desert, I have gotten more involved in fiber art, and exhibit in shows nationally and internationally.

I work with children in general art lessons on a regular basis, and also conduct workshops with adults.

Artist's Statement: Spending nearly 20 years in the manufacturing business taught me to be inventive with the use of materials and processes.  This is something that I continue to explore in my fiber work, combining many different woven and non woven materials to produce my visions.
I have many sources of inspiration as well, from the colorful, rocky landscape in which I now live, to the fantastic and amazing world of scientific imagery.  I am represented by Gallery 101 in Collinsville, Connecticut, USA.

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Online Store: Etsy
Memberships/Links: Studio Art Quilt Associates, New Mexico Art League, Visions Gallery
Social Media: Betty Busby on Facebook and Flickr
Languages Spoken: Americuun

 

"Monstera", 70x53", 2009 by Betty Busby

Tags:  fiber art, art quilt, quiltart, contemporary, RISD, science, nature, southwest