RYAN ART

Artist Statement

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Motherlode Series

 

The Motherlode Series consists of several handcrafted needlepoint designs that I began many years ago in Italy during an artist-in-residency at the Castle of Otranto. The negative shapes cast from the shadows of the castle became the dynamic shapes of the patterns of my needlepoint designs. The colors of the shapes were improvised as I usually do in my process.

 

Although I have been making my own colors and designing my own needlepoint for some time, the Motherlode Series is the first time I decided to join my two key elements-mixing my own colors from dry pigment, gesso, and marble dust and cutting a hole in the canvas and attaching the needlepoint directly into it.

 

By joining these two traditions in art and craft into one composition, I am using the needlepoint as an acknowledgement of the historic antecedents of women who expressed their creativity through craft. By mixing my own colors, I am paying homage to the history of color before synthetic paint was discovered. By giving both painting and needlepoint equal recognition, I am challenging the hierarchy between fine art and craft. Andrée B. Carter