In her Habeson, Delaware, studio, Betsey manipulates small strips of fabric, natural materials, and found objects into award-winning collages that recreate landscapes and moods of her experience of living in the East Coast shores -- from the rocky cost of Maine, the Nantucket moors to the Delaware sea shore where she now lives.
Betsey’s professional life as an interior designer has always been centered on textiles.She graduated from Drew University and the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.She has also studied at the Textile Institute of Rhode Island School of Design.
Betsey’s technique is derived from both craft and landscape art.Viewed from a distance the work is often mistaken for painting.
Betsey has exhibitedextensively: Rehoboth Art League, The Academy of Art Museum, MD, Peninsula Gallery, Lewes, DE, and The Art Station at Stone Mt., GA -- to name a few.She currently has work on exhibit in the US Senate Office of Senator, Tom Carper (DE).She is a juried member of both The Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen and Delaware By Hand.
Norma Lamb
Norma Lamb took up quilting as the perfect antidote to aging.Being of an orderly mind, working with geometric pattern gives her a particular satisfaction.It also opened the door to discovery:“I discovered a young woman inside the box: inquisitive, busy, playful – a student and compassionate artist”.
Norma has been involved in the quilting arts as a shop owner, teacher and through her involvement with various local and state organizations such as the Village Artist & Craftsmen of Hamilton and President of the New York State Quilters Consortium.Her work has been commissioned by Colgate University, Community Memorial Hospital, and for numerous private homes.
She has exhibited widely at Quilting by the Lake, Schweinfuth Memorial Art Center, Old Forge Art Center and various other venues in the Central New York area.
“In quilting, I found the fountain of youth,” says Norma.
Beth Krug
Beth Krug, a trained scientist and Colgate University graduate, comes from a long line of artist and quilters.She learned traditional quilting from her grandmother during summer visits.After a lengthy hiatus, she came in contact with a local fabric designer, Sue Beevers, and soon she was awakened to the exciting possibilities that textile design offered.
Beth joined a guild “filled with diverse and talented women”, who supported her artist pursuit.In the midst of this ‘new’ quilting experience, she became ill and found that this experience sparked an unexpected creativity that has been a crucial part of her healing experience and her emergence as a fiber artist.“So, I work with fabric by history and again by accident…and it is a joyous journey
Judy Curry
Judy Curry resides in Hartwick, NY and started quilting in 1982.Inspired by her garden and love of nature, she incorporates these motifs into her quilt design using various fabrics and hand dyes.
Her preferred method is hand appliqué and hand quilting.Recently she has been experimenting by using fusing and free-motion machine quilting with some of her work.
Dale Ashera-Davis
Dale Ashera-Davis lives in York, PA.Her technique uses braiding and machine piecing, quilting with hand-dyed cottons and silks, commercial fabric, beads, threadwork, tulle and hand-painted fabric.
Jane Porter
Jane’s love of textiles emerged at age four.Her grandmother Ardemis Bedrosian taught her about excellent fabric.Together they designed and sewed all of Jane’s dance dresses.In 1968, Jane sold her first fashion line of printed Egyptian cotton dresses to Peasant Garb of Philadelphia.Costume design at Colgate University Theatre followed in 1970; she learned pattern making during her first “Jan Plan.”In 1988, Jane founded Alexandria Textiles, Inc. a company and school devoted to experimentation with all types of fiber and cloth.Jane is a master dyer specializing in natural dyes and pigments which she uses to make her own printing inks.She studied with Michele Wipplinger for 10 years and is a member of Atelier Designers NYC,One of a Kind Show, Chicago, and Heron Studios in Aston, PA.
“Brocante de Poiters” was inspired by a trip to the Paris Lingerie show and a bookmaking course in Poitiers, France.From found items at the “brocante”, French for “flea market”, she made silk screens to print the fabrics in this piece.All the dyes are natural.Handwoven Leavers Lace from Northern France is incorporated in the collage.
Barbara Ackley
Barbara Ackley started sewing from the age of seven “on my mother’s treadle machine”.Years later, with a family of five, she used her sewing skills to produce their clothing while working at an undergarment factory in Cortland.
Barbara recalls that her first quilt was probably made about 45 years ago by using many diamonds and a template.She tied the quilt together because “it was long before I knew anything about machine quilting”.From then on she produced dozens of quilts many of which were of her own pattern creation.
After her retirement, Barbara started taking classes to sharpen her skills.In 2004, she attended Quilting by the Lake for the first time; that experience prompted her to pursue mastery of various quilt making techniques.
Barbara Ackley is an active member of a guild as well as a member of a quilt study group, and has received numerous ribbons and awards for her work at major national and regional shows.She is recognized for her large scale pieces and for unique one-of-a-kind quilted garments.In 2008, she co-judged the New York State Fair Quilt and Wearable Art entries.From time to time, she gives expert advice to the official appraiser of the American Quilt Society.
Susie Anderson
Susie Anderson recalls that she has been “making things for as long as I can remember”.Long walks in the woods with her Dad helped her to develop an appreciation of nature and natural materials.
Susie was a graphic design major at the University of Illinois.During that period she encountered and was greatly influenced by the Polish fiber artist, Magdalena Abakanowicz. Her subsequent studies in Fibers at Southern Illinois University, where she received an MFA, deepened her appreciation of Japanese textile traditions and Zen aesthetics.Susie has been making baskets, wall hangings, and other “fiber-y things” for nearly 20 years.She currently works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art where she finds constant inspiration from her surroundings.
Susie Anderson uses a couple of modes of working with baskets and wall hangings.She also uses knitting has a comforting creative outlet that she uses in her fiber collages. Her artistic process seeks to awaken the tribal sensibility with all its subtle interconnections within the viewer while transcending any specific tradition.In Susie’s own words: “I suppose that what I’m trying to do is produce tribal textiles for people (like myself) who are caught living outside of a tribe”.
Ileana Olympia Andruchovici
Ileana Olympia Andruchovici is a former architect from Romania, a truly multi-talented person.As a designer, dressmaker and alterations expert, she has worked at numerous luxury retailers such as Suky Rosen and Neiman Marcus in addition to operating her own custom dressmaking business for over 18 years.
As a fine art artist, Ileana uses various mediums such as oil, watercolor, ink, pastels and photography all of which is frequently and superbly expressed through the digital art form.Admiration for nature and humankind often inspires her work.
Janet Foster
Janet Foster originally studied costume design and later switched to painting.At the Texas Women’s University and North Texas State University, she was introduced to formal art techniques and art history.Along with her studies in art, she concurrently built a career in retail where she set up a major studio and gallery in downtown Dallas.
In 1981, Janet moved to the Northwest, where she was inspired by the light and scenery of the Puget Sound.From there, she went on to San Diego, Guam and Saipan where she lived for six years.During that time, she traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia.
While living in the Pacific Islands, she experimented with painting and exploring abstraction.The focus of her work was on the island people, native flowers and trees.
She has made exploring new materials an important part of her artistic life.When she returned to the Northwest in ’91 she recalls that it: “engendered a new point of view and palette.The change in the light was a real challenge for me.” Looking back, Janet finds that all of her travels have provided her with artistic inspiration.
During her stay in Saipan, she received the prestigious Governor’s Award as both a supporter of the arts and artist.She has exhibited extensively throughout the Northwest.
"Blue Jacket" Natural Dyes by Carys Hammer
Carys Ann Hamer
Carys Ann Hamer has lived in various parts of the world where textiles are an important part of the cultural traditions.The cloths are worn at the celebrations of birth, marriage and death.She lived with and collected the textiles of the Bemba people of Zambia, the Ovambo of Namibia and the Ndebele of South Africa.Later, Carys Ann lived in Indonesia where she studied batik, geringsing, ikat and songket textiles.These cultures have had a profound influence on her work
Carys Ann is the recipient of awards and has exhibited her work in Washington State
Judy Connor Jones
Judy describes her textile work as a “spectrum of color”.She strives for an impressionistic feel as she blends the colors of the yarns. A viewer might see, upon first impression, a solid color, but with closer examination a whole array of colors come to light thereby giving her work the subtle movement of color without it ever appearing to be static or flat.
Judy’s love of color has lead her to explore the color principles of hue, value, and intensitycombining it harmoniously with thetechnique of crossing smooth and textured yarns in the warp and weft
Handwoven Fabric, Embellished and Stitched Beret by Judy Connor Jones
Elia Woods
Elia Woods is a fiber artist and photographer whose art explores the connections between food, community, consumerism and spiritual sustenance. Her art has been included in regional, national and international exhibits including Fiber National 2007 and Visions 2006. The art quilt “Salad Ballad," was displayed in Quilt National 2005, distinguishing Woods as the first Oklahoma artist accepted into the international juried competition during its 26-year history. She is also a four-time recipient of the Best of Show honor at Fiberworks, a statewide exhibit of Oklahoma fiber artists.
