Diane Cadrain
Artist Statement:
The natural world inspires my work by offering constantly-refreshed images of arresting loveliness. Tolstoy said, “Love all creation…love every leaf.” In that spirit, I create images that combine fragility with strength and the evanescent with the eternal. The evanescent and the eternal appear, for example, in the sand ripples left by the departing water at low tide. Those ripples are always different, yet eternally the same.
My fiber art work focuses primarily on landscape, and encompasses two principal types of media, quilting and felting. The quilted creations are painted on cotton, then embellished with thread painting, backed with batting and backing, and finally quilted. The quilting adds dimensionality to the work. The felted pieces are created by deploying a material called wool roving as if it were paint. I then enhance this tactile and textured medium with hand embroidery.
The natural world inspires my work by offering constantly-refreshed images of arresting loveliness. Tolstoy said, “Love all creation…love every leaf.” In that spirit, I create images that combine fragility with strength and the evanescent with the eternal. The evanescent and the eternal appear, for example, in the sand ripples left by the departing water at low tide. Those ripples are always different, yet eternally the same.
My fiber art work focuses primarily on landscape, and encompasses two principal types of media, quilting and felting. The quilted creations are painted on cotton, then embellished with thread painting, backed with batting and backing, and finally quilted. The quilting adds dimensionality to the work. The felted pieces are created by deploying a material called wool roving as if it were paint. I then enhance this tactile and textured medium with hand embroidery.
Artist Bio:
In 2015 I retired from freelance work as a lawyer and writer specializing in employment law topics, but I’ve been sewing all my life, starting with hand embroidery and pin weaving as taught by my grandmother at our home in Hamden, CT. I learned machine sewing in the Hamden public schools, and with that skill, I proceeded to construct my own clothes and costumes. As a law student, I learned to knit, and later, in my early 30s, as a new mother, I began quilting. I took up felting in my 50s. My fiber art work now includes hand-painted fabric, thread painting, felting, knitted embellishments, hand embroidery, and beading.
In 2015 I retired from freelance work as a lawyer and writer specializing in employment law topics, but I’ve been sewing all my life, starting with hand embroidery and pin weaving as taught by my grandmother at our home in Hamden, CT. I learned machine sewing in the Hamden public schools, and with that skill, I proceeded to construct my own clothes and costumes. As a law student, I learned to knit, and later, in my early 30s, as a new mother, I began quilting. I took up felting in my 50s. My fiber art work now includes hand-painted fabric, thread painting, felting, knitted embellishments, hand embroidery, and beading.
