Featured Artist : Deborah WeirFiberFly Studios

I am a mixed media artist who uses textiles in most of my work.  I share my techniques and discoveries with students through continuing workshops at my studio.  Though contemporary in every sense, the work I do references traditional “women’s work,” slowly built up, mostly by hand, with a needle, using gentle materials – thread, floss, beads – in addition to more modern edgier ones such as Tyvek, metals and found objects to which I apply heat.  My work is detailed, often with reflective surfaces and tiny, rich elements, and does not always neatly fit typical categories but includes collage and heavily worked or embroidered surfaces as well as art quilts and weaving. 

I begin by dyeing white fabric with MX dyes sometimes using an ice dyeing technique.  I then screen print and paint, occasionally with thickened dyes, before appliquéing, stitching and finishing the pieces.

I love the process of making, but my work is always idea driven.  I work in series so that I can pursue themes of importance to me.  The 40,000-15,000 year-old cave paintings of northern Spain and southern France and Australia are the subject of one such series.  Industrial detritus: rusty metal, bits of plastics and random “junk” sparkle and seduce when repurposed into art and comprise yet another.  Language, including early human mark-making, is an ever-present theme.

I continue to probe the nature of our planet.  My series Fierce Winds explores the excitement and terror of searing winds and raging fires which have been exacerbated by sudden climate change. 

Recently, I began to consider aspects of water:  its beauty, scarcity and impact, how the constant quest for usable water controls the lives of countless members of the human family. Additionally, I’ve been working with the plastics we leave behind with focus on the growing Garbage Patches (also referred to as gyres) in our oceans.  The objective of my artwork is to awaken the mind of the viewer by means of visual seduction.