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| Architectural Textiles |
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Heather Allen-Swarttouw's work begins as white or light colored cotton, linen, silk and antique fabrics. She is a collector and a firm believer in recycling, often combining wonderful old antique textile fragments with new fabrics. She draws her inspiration from her life and the environment around her, the rich surfaces and architecture of the historic buildings in Asheville, NC, and the surrounding beauty of western North Carolina.
The staircases, hallways, doorways and loading docks she sketches from her life become the muse for the narrative spaces in her work. They become metaphors for expressing various journeys, transitions, and threshholds within her life's journey. Seasonal landscapes, the textures and colors found in the natural world, especially the intense vibrant colors of flowers serve as the inspiration for her colorful palette.
Heather's innovative work can take many forms, sometimes the fabrics are pieced into a quilt top or woven into a rag rug "canvas." She enjoys spending time mixing her dyes, this allows her to fine tune the value and relationship of each color in a piece. Sometimes the image is painted with thickened dye and other pieces begin with hand dyed cloth. In both cases she enjoys layering numerous surface design techniques using dyes and textile inks to build up layers of vibrant color and pattern. The construction of the piece can include a combination of hand and machine sewing, collage, embroidery, and hand and machine quilting. The physical layering of the surface design processes and stitching reinforce the visual and tactile sense of architectural space. |
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| Inward Spiral |
Art Quilt - whole cloth quilt, cotton, dye, paste resist, hand quilted with hand dyed silk and linenthread
36" x 60"
Available |
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