Sharon McCartney

Belchertown, Massachusetts

A fascination with the minutia of the natural world inspires Sharon McCartney’s work. Actual stones, twigs, leaves, and other objects are combined with a variety of surface design techniques in an attempt to capture the rhythms of the world around her. Using stitch as a meditative practice adds to the peaceful aura her work invokes.

Minute aspects of the natural world

When I was young, I had a daily and vivid connection to the natural world and my surroundings. I was aware of minute changes in growth and season, and was attuned to small details and discoveries. At times it feels as if my work is solely focused on returning to that pure state of attentiveness. The need to collect, to hold, to marvel, and to preserve has always been there for me and continuously informs my work.

Our experiences of nature often come in moments. A particular view or vivid detail will capture our attention, enrich us, and perhaps fade from our minds. My attention has long been held by these glimpses and discoveries; they have become my source of sanctuary and personal rhythm. Collecting natural forms and incorporating them into my work reaffirms truths that begin with the self, but are immediately universal.

Stitch

I use rusting, gel printing, and sun printing to customize plain and commercially decorated fabrics, and I augment these processes with painting, photo transfer, and other forms of mark making. The stitched surface has had an ever-increasing presence in my work. In practice, stitching has brought a

above, from top: Welcome Guest

8 x 20 inches, 2015

Follow Home

8 x 20 inches, 2015

Totem Cloth: Under The Blue Moon

47 x 14 inches, 2014

meditative element to my process that I find dynamic yet peaceful, as instant color choices are combined with repetitive motion, resulting in an accumulation of time and texture. I have always been concerned with building layered surfaces in my work, and stitching indulges my love of pattern while also allowing me to build a unique history for each piece.

Because I work in series, my days vary between creating the materials I will use and the actual construction of the pieces. For each series I spend a few weeks making up a palette of new fabrics and working up a set of drawings that will be transferred to cloth panels. I plan several pieces at a time, adapting my ideas and compositions as the series develops. I collect found objects—stones, twigs, and plant material—and spend time outdoors amassing sketches and photographs as inspiration for my work.

Other pathways

Studying art history for a master’s degree helped me to develop a critical eye. It also introduced me to a rich variety of approaches and ideas from all kinds of eras and cultures. For example, studying Japanese art made me appreciate asymmetry and the power to be found in the direct presentation of simple, natural subjects. More recently I’ve been looking at the history and practice of amulet and talisman making in many different cultures. These objects speak to traditions of myths and memories, and to the accumulations of stories used to explain and connect us to the inexplicable.

In addition to art quilts, I create paintings, collages, artist books, and small mixed-media sculptures. I often take an idea for a series and work on it in several disciplines at once, using some of the same drawings, found objects, and embellishments on different pieces. Stitching unites all of my work. I employ it in my collages, books, and fiber sculptures, and it is, of course, featured in my quilt pieces. With this language of stitches, marks, and patterns on hand-printed textiles, I connect to eras when people lived by the cadences of the earth, times when both subjects and symbolism had spiritual bonds with nature.

Quilt as Art exhibition

SAQA has provided me with a wealth of exhibition and publishing opportunities. This past year, I participated in the Quilt as Art exhibition at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts. SAQA publi

Almost Persuaded

48 x 21 inches, 2014

cations and email updates are an invaluable source of ideas, inspiration, and information about the art quilt community. .

I’m currently preparing work for a solo exhibition scheduled for May 2017 at Borelli Edwards Gallery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In that show I will combine art quilts with objects inspired by the traditions of amulet and talisman making. I want to utilize the forms of totems, talismans, and amulets to encourage dialogues between representation and ornamentation,

between two and three dimensions. This exhibition will involve suites of pieces that relate to one another, communicating a sense of place from multiple perspectives.

Process

Last summer, I began a series of small quilts during an annual visit to Split Rock Cove in Rockland, Maine. Welcome Guest and Follow Home are two pieces from this series.

I began work on the pieces by printing fabrics specifically for them, utilizing sun print and gel print techniques on linen and cotton, and using local plants as motifs. After two weeks of printing layers of images, one over the next, I began to combine these fabrics with other materials that I had collected for the project. Using a simple photo transfer method, I transferred some black and white drawings I had made onto linen, then I collected some small stones and beach glass. To these I added ceramic pieces that I had made earlier in the year as embellishments.

Construction of the pieces began with a measured pattern in cotton organdy, the stabilizer I use to give structure to each piece and to support my embroidery. The cotton and linen panels were pieced together by hand before I turned my attention to embellishment. I purposely kept the compositions simple so that I could focus on developing the surfaces.

Extensive hand embroidery followed, and then I attached grids of pebbles and a few strategically placed ceramic details to enliven the surface and add movement. The pieces were then finished with layers of stiff interfacing and a backing fabric and quilted by hand.

Always finding something new

My favorite reaction to my work is when people tell me they can return to it again and again and find something new, something that they hadn’t noticed or considered before.

For me, the personal is political. I don’t focus on trying to expose ways in which we are all harming the environment—we know that we’re doing it, and there are activists who are better than I am at tackling those issues. I hope my work inspires people to look with wonder at elements of the natural world and to consider the value of appreciating both the major events and the tiny, significant moments.

One of my all-time favorite quotes from environmentalist Rachel Carson is, “One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, ‘What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?’” I hope to inspire appreciation for daily encounters with the natural world, for discovering smaller, personal ways we can interact with nature, absorb its lessons, and make individual efforts to protect it.

sharonmccartneyart.com

below: Healing Wounded Souls:

Earth, Water, Air

20 x 70 inches (20 x 22 each) 2015 with detail, right

Courtesy of Borelli Edwards Galleries