"Dragon's Rising" 24"
Artist Bio & Statement
All creative expression comes from the One source. The blessed gift of being creative is my experience of “flow,” when time stops and joy is a stream burbling through me.
I am fortunate to come from a lineage of female artists and musicians. Having moved away from my early path as a pianist and vocalist, I had the fortunate misfortune to be felled by serious illness at 28 years old. Homebound and needing something to do as I moved from bed to couch, I reached for long-forgotten skills taught by my grandmother, mother and aunt. Thus began a new journey into my artistic soul. Through the grace of stillness, induced by my illness, I began creating as I felt called.
I move through the world by intuition, emotion, touch, smell, visual sensation. Thoughts, ideas and emotions have “feeling,” color, image and sensation for me…visceral experience. Fiber allows me to integrate my emotional and spiritual “felt” sense with my love for kinesthetic life.
My art shares my vision of the physical, emotional, and energetic textures of the natural world and internal experience. My work explores the relationship between nature, soul and humanity, and how the threads of this dynamic relationship impact emotion, personal awareness, and the experience of beauty as the soul is nourished. All speak to me of that communion which is the essence of Being and the nurturance of soul.
My designs come to me from dreams and dream-like visions, from nature, from the souls I meet, and from my own healing, evolving and spiritual journey as a human being. I seek to express either a deep felt-sense that wells up from inner experience and body-soul memory, or a spirit I sense in an image. I explore where that memory or spirit takes me in the process of transforming it into fiber. In the case of body-soul memory, I seek to follow the thread that creates the bridge between a felt truth within me and visual expression, making visible the inarticulate. Each piece leads me on a journey. In the end, I discover a spirit greater than I sensed originally. The work unfolds to show me beyond, as Leonard Cohen says, “….what I only know the limits of.”
I experience profound communion with nature, with Creation, with my own deepest self, and with G-d through the birthing of each piece. Poems often emerge to join the artwork, sometimes even preceding and inspiring the piece. My use of technique is defined by the needs of a given piece. I love the exploration of technique to “voice” the piece as it wishes to be “heard” and felt.
This is a large pillow, 25″ x 25,” commissioned for a young woman. This is my third commission for her. Her mother has remembered her 6th, 12th, and 18th bithdays with original work. Each one reflects who she has become as she has grown. It’s been a lovely journey with her.
…and the slide show. I love slide shows…have you noticed?!
This piece started as a mock up for the much larger “Canyon I.” I finished a different mock up for that piece, but I recently went back and decided to finish this version. It’s about 18″ x 24″. $225 Email if you’re interested: sknp4710@aol.com
Currently hanging at Ashland Art Works Galleries, 291 Oak St., Ashland, Oregon. Go by and have a look at all my current work. I’d love to hear your comments.
I love to be in the mountains, in nature where all sound belongs to the Earth and her creatures…from the wind shooshing through the pines high above to the nestlings of the moles and bugs below. In between are the streams, pouring down the mountain’s flank, the smell of loamy soil and dry lichen rising under the heat of the sun’s kiss, my own breathing. My soul opens up and drinks nourishment through my body. It is a blessing.
Creating these pieces in my studio takes me back to this communion in nature. So each piece is infused with that loving nourishment and peace. It’s a joy to create them. Pay Pal & Checks.
"Wooded Mountain" roughly 18" x 7" $60
Not sure where this one came from. It just emerged…and it was a lot of fun to create! I loved spirograph as a child. This piece called for lots of different shapes and motion, a relationship of movement and strong color between the piecing and the thread painting. Spirograph used such neon colors. I always felt such joy as the colors created amazing shapes that interwove before my eyes, surprising me.
$280
This small commission (approx. 14″ x 20″) was made as a wedding gift for people who love hiking and nature. Reports are it was received with delight.
This slide show offers some of the creation process, as well as the completed piece.
This is a slide show of “Antelope Canyon‘s” “birth” process. I hope you enjoy this glimpse of the stages and layers to creating a piece such as this. Believe me, this is the short form! Stephanie
"Redwood Forest Walk" Batik Queen Bed Quilt
One of the main joys of working in fiber is the kinesthesia of color it offers. I actually hold color in my hand and feel the weight of it within the fabric. It’s the difference between seeing a photo of your beloved or actually touching his/her hand.
When you buy a piece of fiber art, or a quilt, you enjoy an added dimension in the kinesthetic presence fabric brings into your home. Our bodies sense touch even when we are not touching. We are wired for tactile perception. Whether you are hanging a piece on your wall or laying it upon your bed, your eyes, body and soul feel the touch of it and warm to it.
This is a queen-size bed quilt I recently finished for a client. It reminds me of a deep forest walk…sun in the sky high above a thick forest canopy, the smell of damp, loamy earth under redwoods, the taste of rich, fertile soil that hangs in the air, the feel of fog on my face as I move, and the deep quiet of nature I feel in my bones, that blesses and nourishes my soul
In the next week I will be setting up my “Holiday Sales Gallery” on this site. By next Friday several new items will be posted for purchase. This season I will be donating 10% of all holiday sales to the Food Bank.
As always, I am available for commissioned work. Please contact me at sknead7@aol.com to begin that process.
Please pass this site on to your friends.
Wonderful news this week! I have been invited to be a featured artist at Illahe Gallery www.illahegallery.com this February.
I will be creating 2 – 3 pieces similar in process to “Antelope Canyon,” below. I begin with a photo or photos of a place in nature; I create an initial design of about 18″ x 24″ and a final design of about 3′ x 5′ with much greater detail.
I love this process. I feel myself on the inside of the inside as I commune with the heart of nature that the image yearns to bring forth. I experience a deep communion with the place and qualities of the earth I am rendering. It nourishes my soul, and I emerge from hours in my studio with a happy heart and a light spirit.
I am in the process of choosing my images for the show. I will perhaps choose a further image from the Slot Canyons…very different from “Antelope.” I have also long desired to create a tide pool image. And I have wonderful images of snow creatures, trees and snow, that I would love to create in fiber.
I’ll keep you posted!
Commissions accepted. Please contact me at sknead7@aol.com or call 541-292-9390.
Stephanie's Creations 