beth dorsey

Beth Dorsey is a printmaker whose imagery explores the tension between structure/intentionality and randomness/spontaneity. She is drawn to everyday objects with repeatable elements or patterns such as blinds, quilts, fabric, grates, and building facades. These repurposed objects and patterns are the starting point for the evolving visual dialog which is the core of the printing process, each layer is in conversation with the previous layer and the next layer. 

Structure, routine, and patterns form the underpinnings of modern life. They are always present though often go unnoticed. By making visible the unseen or invisible highlights their importance and utility. The patterned foundation allows spontaneity and individuality of subsequent layers. The interplay of each layer stimulates the mind and eye. Meaning occurs when they intersect and fuel the creative process. 

https://www.bethdorsey.com/

susan hensel

I am a multidisciplinary artist, with a 50+ year career, who combines a mixed media practice with embroidery across digital and manual platforms. I make sculpture and wall art using the colors and techniques of commercial embroidery, designed in the computer and stitched out on the computer-aided embroidery machine with the aim to create an experience for the viewer that overwhelms with color, transcends the quotidian and encourages one, for even a few seconds, to step outside the narrative of the ego into a place of pure sensation. Digital machine embroidery is not a substitute for, nor a speedier version of, nor an imitator of handwork. It is a mindset and a media choice in and of itself. As an artist I find its beauty and structure is qualitatively unique. It deals in optical color perception but provides a lenticular opportunity due to the tri-lobal structure of the thread and its ability to bend light. To quote Jane McKeating, "Color drips off the needle every bit as richly as from a brush." Digital embroidery lends itself to hard edge geometry as well as biomorphic form. The combination of high tech with "women's work" provides a delicious contrast of hard/soft, nostalgic/current, objective/non-objective. It also lends itself to modular repetition and re-combinations. Themes can be played out quickly in the computer and then stitched and sampled oh so slowly on the machine; combined with and without mixed media in a wide-ranging exploration of forms in space. In this chaotic time, digital textiles seem like a way to begin to bring order to the world. Order is, however, always unstable, a glimmer of a hope, cut off by random acts of chance or intent. It is no different in digital embroidery. In the computer, all things seem orderly, put together, and logical, as though the human propensity for chaos did not exist. In production, chance operates: human error, flawed thread, broken needles, run out bobbins, high humidity, low humidity, fabric popping out of hoops and the panicked phone call from a friend. Repair savvy, canny attention and a spirit of wabi sabi is essential.

https://susanhenselprojects.com/

ingrid restemayer

I am a fiber artist and printmaker originally from North Dakota now based in Minneapolis, MN. My mixed media artwork incorporates traditional hand-embroidery techniques, on hand-dyed papers and hand-pulled prints – process-intensive fine art mediums combined through collage.

The landscape in the Northern plains is a never-ending steady horizon. In such an environment one learns to find excitement and inquiry in the slightest variation. For many months of the year the landscape is frozen -- the only interruption to low snow drifts being the regular linear patterns of the surrounding farmland. My continual lines of running stitches and fields of French knots were born out of inspiration from those windblown spaces.

Though fiber is not typically a minimalist medium, my work emulates this peaceful beauty in its monotony while also conveying calmness through repetition. My work has a hint of storytelling with the use of my intaglio images as pseudo-illustrations for a kind of narrative when paired with code-like paragraph shapes formed from hand-embroidery.

I stitch by hand, using needle and thread – not by machine. This is the age of instant electronic communication, the age of getting anything instantly via smartphone. Sustainable tactics in art creation, things made by the human hand often have the power to promote further human interaction. I want my work to remind society that non-mechanized art and imagery is still achievable and still experiential.

https://www.ingridartworks.com/

MARY SANNERUD

Mary Sannerud is a felt-maker creating textiles through the process of wet-felting. She came to this work by great surprise, growing up in a family who did not create with their hands. She learned traditional felt rug making in the U.S. from a family of felt-makers from Kyrgyzstan, then lived and worked with her mentors in Kyrgyzstan for three months. This experience deeply rooted her work and provided a broader understanding of the importance of felt in the home.  Her explorations into textural and sculptural felt-making are driven by her love of wool and other natural materials, as well as felt's ability to express the magic of a moment that words often cannot convey. Her business, Sannerud Studios, is a collaborative effort with her husband. Together they work with wood, metal, and fiber from their home studios in Grand Marais, MN, often with their young son nearby.
https://sannerudstudios.com/fiber/