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<\/p>\nFiber artists showing their creations in the \u201cBeyond the Canvas\u201d exhibit this month have found a way to express themselves as\u00a0 accomplished sewers and artists.<\/p>\n
The free exhibit can be seen through Saturday, April 4 at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts, 15498 Espola Road.<\/p>\n
Participants are members of the Southern California\/Nevada region of Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc. The international nonprofit\u2019s mission is to promote the art quilt as a creative visual work that is layered and stitched with a vision that the art quilt be universally respected as a fine art medium.<\/p>\n
SAQA has grown into an active community of more than 4,000 artists, curators, collectors and art professionals, according to the PCPA\u2019s website. Of those, 35 members are showcasing their work in Poway.<\/p>\n
SAQA member Kathleen McCabe of Coronado said without the show having a theme, the artists had the freedom to create unique designs for exhibition. Included are a variety of abstract, representational, landscapes, seascapes and whimsical pieces, some of which have a specific meaning, McCabe said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to promote the quilt as a fine art medium recognized as art,\u201d said McCabe, who is displaying two quilts that show a great blue heron and an egret getting ready to fly. \u201cInstead of crafts, paint or clay, we use fabric and thread.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Courtesy Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc.<\/p>\n
Barbara Danzi made this modern design quilt titled \u201cOrange Crush.\u201d (Courtesy Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc.)<\/p>\n
Among the show\u2019s artists are part-time Rancho Bernardo resident Mary Tabar, who also lives in Chicago, and Rancho Penasquitos resident Kathy Piper.<\/p>\n
Tabar said she\u2019s considered herself an artist since she won her first art award in kindergarten.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had a pencil or a needle in my hand for as long as I can remember,\u201d said Tabar, who learned to sew as a child from her mom, Ruth Wood. \u201cShe sold sewing machines for Singer so she was very into sewing. She sewed all of our clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tabar began quilting 30 years ago after taking a continuing education class in the craft at Palomar College. Five years later, the teacher retired and Tabar ended up teaching it for the next 10 years, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI absolutely love it,\u201d Tabar said. \u201cMy teacher used very bright colors and made a kind of modern quilt. I had never seen that before. I had only seen my grandmother\u2019s traditional handmade quilts. I didn\u2019t know they could be modern and hung on the wall. That really attracted me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inspired to create her own art with textiles, Tabar said she quickly transitioned from making traditional large wedding quilts for beds to smaller, more artistic pieces. Her work on display at the PCPA includes a modern design titled \u201cJan\u2019s X-Block,\u201d an abstract titled \u201cSunrise\u201d and a design on bleached fabric depicting a tree in a garden titled \u201cEden\u2019s Garden.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tabar is simultaneously showing 10 of her pieces at the Garden Apartment Gallery in Chicago, she said.<\/p>\n
Since her stockpile of quilts quickly accumulates, Tabar said she makes quilts for friends and family members and lets them choose what they like. She also sometimes sells her quilts.<\/p>\n
Her preferred fabric is cotton, which she either bleaches or dyes depending on the artwork.<\/p>\n
\u201cI find cotton is nicer to work with,\u201d Tabar said. \u201cI\u2019m a fabric dyer so I dye a lot of my own material, which is the opposite of bleaching.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piper said she has been quilting about as long as Tabar, having started in 1996.<\/p>\n
Her journey began when she majored in painting and minored in sculpture at the University of Michigan in the class of 1969. She became a painter using different mediums including oil pastels and acrylics and also created drawings. Other than making fiber or textile art she also paints portraits.<\/p>\n
Piper said she began making art by working with fiber in 2008. She recalled being introduced to working with fabrics as a young child like other artists who grew up \u201cmaking doll clothes with our mothers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cArtists use any kind of medium to make their art and fiber is one of them,\u201d Piper said, adding that she loves sharing her art. \u201cWe use fiber and thread to make our art instead of oil paints or acrylics or any other medium.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piper\u2019s entry in the SAQA show is a seascape titled \u201cKefalonia on My Mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Courtesy Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc.<\/p>\n
Rancho Penasquitos resident Kathy Piper made this seascape quilt titled \u201cKefalonia on My Mind.\u201d (Courtesy Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc.)<\/p>\n
Like traditional artwork, Piper said her quilts are not made to be utilized, but to hang on a wall like an oil painting would hang.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether you want to express your feelings in an abstract or realistic way or show beauty, it works the same way with every artist,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery artist expresses their work individually.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are fiber artists who make three-dimensional work like sculptures that you can stand and walk around that are made out of fabric,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
McCabe said the process of creating quilts can take longer than paintings, particularly when the artists dye their own fabric, cut the fabric and assemble it in imaginative and creative ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis exhibit has artists in our organization of all skill levels, but all of them are exemplary,\u201d McCabe said. \u201cEven those who have not exhibited before have done exceptional work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cBeyond the Canvas\u201d exhibit is free to viewers and some of the quilts are for sale.<\/p>\n
Exhibit viewing hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and 1 to 6 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. An artists reception open to the public is 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday, March 15. While parking is free, parking passes are required on weekdays and can be picked up in the main office within the PCPA lobby. For details, call 858-748-0505.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fiber artists showing their creations in the \u201cBeyond the Canvas\u201d exhibit this month have found a way to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[5236,28737,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-211213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-pomerado-news","tag-pomerado-news-things-to-do","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}