Web: www.MelissaCravenFowler.com
e-mail: mcf3@cornell.edu
Artwork is a window into the artist’s personal world, an expression of things she may not have any other way to articulate. There's a delicious place of retreat, spontaneity and healing in creating my work. Increasingly, a radiant synthesis of heart, imagination and serendipity emerges at the end.
Most of the fabrics used in my pieces are dyed or painted in my studio - serendipitous layered colors, liquids carrying blotches to the layers above or below. My "Collage" quilts are composed in an immediate process, on the wall in front of me. Whenever possible, I cut shapes by hand, designing and fusing right on the wall. The shapes and colors decide where they will end up on the quilt, and then the magic happens. I seem to be simply the vehicle for the pieces to compose themselves. Let the edges do whatever they want to. Quilt stitches not only stabilize the fibers, but also sculpt the surface, carving the shapes into landscape features.
I no longer question how or why I do what I do, or whether it is "important", or certainly whether others will like it (although it's nice if they do). I just gotta do it.
Collage II: The Fabric of our Existence
21"w x 26"h
© 2000
Collage XXVIII: Distraction
21"w x 13.5"h
© 2009
Collage XXVII: Distinction
12"h x 12" w
© 2009