The art call mentioned the word stitch. I felt especially pleased to submit my latest collage work.

What a GREAT way to launch into the new year.

Make.Shift Gallery is excited to ring in the new year with “Warp & Woof: A Fiber Arts Extravaganza!” We invited the public to submit artworks created from any and all fiber-based mediums. Taking its name from the world of weaving (warp is the term used to describe the longitudinal fibers and woof the latitudinal), “Warp & Woof” is a celebration of the intersection between arts and crafts. This exhibit will feature locally made felted sculptures, a flowing fabric installation, detailed embroidery, and sew much more! Join us on Jan 4th for First Friday Art Walk, for a tour through the wide world of woven arts.

A shout out of appreciation to the volunteers and staff at MakeShift who hung this display and made the signage. 

Self-taught intuitive artist Karen Hanrahan, utilizes a digital camera or torn magazine pages to document & narrate the challenges of her life. Her multi-disciplinary work expresses her tenacious spirit by processing personal topics such as rape, loneliness, trauma and poverty. Karen’s work is acknowledged as organic, intimate and visually engaging.

Mid 2018, after acquiring a used and rather finicky sewing machine, Karen began to experiment with adding stitching to her collage work. Since, her work more often then not includes this additional medium and expression.

From left to right: #1 and #2 are squares trialing what is known as crazy quilt technique, but with paper. The top square includes a photograph sent to Karen in the mail. Piece #3, illustrates with collage, Karen and her two adult children, all at places in their lives where they are crossing new thresholds. #4 began with image pairing the redhead and the auburn colored trim of the bag, and then finishing it all off by binding with the backing. #5 took pages of an older collage journal and pieced them together like a quilt. #5 and #6, both began as free form style collage pieces, #6 includes an original photograph, #5, is finished by binding it with a backing. Many of Karen’s mixed medium pieces are also interesting on their backsides.