Textile Talks

This SAQA Exhibition Microscape and textile talk focused upon Our known world and how it stretches far beyond what we can see with the unaided eye. Microscopes, magnifying glasses, and virtual imaging techniques reveal a world of great beauty and complexity. That world contains the smallest particles, tiniest organisms, smallest landscape, or natural details and can provide us with an abundance of artistic inspiration which those named artists have managed to do. https://www.saqa.com/

Margaret Lowers Abramshe is a textile artist who specialises in collage including quilting to explore stories starting with a photograph. Vintage images, family albums and camera phone snapshots documenting her life are this textile artists primary subject matter. Her art quilts have a rich subtext – a hidden story starting with a photograph. This artist uses a variety of software programmes to create personal icons through understanding and communicating a range of complex ideas with digital and hand collage. Margaret uses a commercial vendor to print her imagery onto fabric. After the yardage arrives in the studio it is painted with a variety of media. Her signature process treats the surface like a canvas. She covers the painted cloth with an elaborate pattern of stitches to add yet another layer of visual interest to the composition. For Margaret Lowers Abramshe “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” https://www.saqa.com/

As stated by Margaret Lowers Abramshe Metaphysics is a school of philosophy which questions the nature of the mind. This term was first mentioned in the title of a treatise by Aristotle. The meta-physical refers to transcending the physical. A quilter is creating an object with multiple layers that is held together with stitch. She explains her metaphor as artwork that goes beyond the physical to express layers of thought. For Abramshe art is a spiritual and intellectual process. Creating for her serves as doctor, professor, therapist, and confidant. For her the subject is always connected to her life as so most of her work includes a figurative element. Her source material centres upon personal imagery whereby she is influenced by both surrealism and contemporary portraiture. This textile artist primarily uses photo manipulation to achieve her aesthetic but is not primarily informed or defined by any one single genre, medium, school or process. Rather the creative process is an authentic expression of who she is, her beliefs, and her view of the larger world.

Margaret has a BFA and a Masters in Art. She spent her career as a public-school educator. Since retiring, Margaret has devoted her time to being a full-time studio artist. Margaret’s art quilts have been shared in numerous museums and festival exhibitions. She teaches and lectures online.

Bob started his artistic career in photography exploring the darkest and the lightest of shades a photograph can hold to express a unique ambience. He understood that gradation of light creates countless dimensions to give an image a feel of depth and complexity. He used this awareness to fabricate his three-dimensional shapes in a different medium to create the illusion of sculptural forms utilising fibre material. He spent countless hours on the sewing machine stitching, seaming, and thread painting which resulted in these conceptual and volumetric art pieces.

As stated by Bob this series traces his experimentation with the sewing machine and the technique of Tread Painting, the continuous movement of fabric under a moving needle. The work for this series was made on 3 stationary Bernina sewing machines using more than 70 miles of Gutermann thread. In the beginning he was intent on creating the illusion of space, much as he has done in his drawings of sculpture. Gradually he began to create the structure of 3-D underscored by the gradation of light and dark across the implied surfaces. Later works would evolve to have the appearance of pieces actually falling off. There are many examples of Tromper l’œil, where he attempted to fool the eye of the viewer into seeing the 2-D as 3-D, and vice-versa.

Continuous shading and blending the way that light falls across a surface using thread is a preferred technique by Bob Mosier, which centres upon this artist and his sculpting skills, knowledge and understanding, of the beauty in shadows being fully appreciated and communicated through his textile art.