Submitted
Come see quilting as you have never seen before! Two fantastic textile artists, Donna Sheppard and Alison Dean Cowitz, have created a dynamic exhibition of quilted works of art. Alison and Donna met through their mutual involvement in the Fernie Quilt Guild and have been quilting buddies since 2009. Together they have been expanding their skills through attending workshops, even traveling to Montana and Saskatchewan to learn new quilting and fabric dying techniques. This friendship and love of quilting brought them together to create a dynamic exhibition, and over the past year they have been working independently on their pieces.
Donna is a contemporary fiber artist who has had the opportunity to study design and colour with a number of world class instructors. For over 10 years Donna has operated the successful long arm quilting business, Donna’s Quilting + Design, in the Elk Valley. Donna feels very lucky to have one of the best jobs in the world. She is proud to have had her banner “Fallen Trees” chosen and displayed in downtown Fernie. Most of Donna’s work in the show is inspired by nature; she uses both commercial and her own hand dyed fabrics. Donna feels she has been fortunate to have taken many classes on design and colour over the years and it has helped develop her own unique techniques. Today her work combines everything she has learned along the way.
Fernie has been Alison’s second home for over a decade, and she spends a great deal of time vacationing here from Calgary. Using graphic sensibilities, “Quilted Interpretations” is a collection of art quilt pieces created with both commercial and hand dyed fabrics. Inspired by images flavoured with experience, curiousity and compulsion, Alison’s art challenges and communicates using interesting colour and fabric designs, combined with clean lines and traditional quilting methods. She is influenced by a creative desire to reproduce visual scenes in fresh new ways. Each piece evolves while challenging her understanding of colour and design. This is Alison’s first art exhibition; she described the process of creating pieces for the show as “both a frightening and an exhilarating experience.” This body of work represents an awakening of her creativity and the progression of her desire to pursue and express her ideas in fabric.
Quilted Interpretations opens on Thursday, October 31 at 7 pm. Please join the artists for light refreshments and a first look at these new works of art.
If you have questions about this event, or other Arts Station events please contact us at 250-423-4842 or info@theartsstation.com.