Flora, Fauna and Flow - Solo Show

Update: The last day for the show is Saturday, 12/23/17. 

I am thrilled and honored to announce my solo show, Flora, Fauna and Flow, is now open at the Olewine Gallery of the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art in Millersburg, PA.

 The exhibit is comprised of 30 of my art quilts, related to the theme of plant life, animal life, and the Susquehanna River. It's a rare opportunity to see this many of my quilts in one place.

 These pictures are from the installation last week--the signage, etc. is not in place, but you can get a sense of how spacious and wonderfully lit the gallery space is. It's the perfect setting for my work.

 The exhibit has a nice long run, through December 31, 2017. Hours and directions are on the website. It's a 30 minute drive north of Harrisburg, PA through pretty country.

I'd love to see you at the reception on Saturday, October 21, at 6:30 p.m. in the Olewine Gallery. The event is free, but please register by calling 717-692-3699, or email smartin@nedsmithcenter.org. There will be refreshments.

And you can make a day of it! Located on the outskirts of historic Millersburg, the Ned Smith Center Lands and Trails encompass more than 500 acres of forest and meadow that stretch from the scenic Wiconisco Creek to the top of Berry's Mountain. The land includes a mature hardwood forest alive with deer, bear, wild turkey, grouse and fox, along with hundreds of species of songbirds, insects and reptiles.

Here's a quick video I took while working on the installation--what a wonderful space the Olewine Gallery is!

Here's the press release with all the details:

Flora, Fauna and Flow

Contemporary Quilts – Inspired by Nature
Presented by Sue Reno

Sue Reno is an award winning fiber artist who lives and works in Lancaster County, PA. Her rich and intricate art quilts reflect her local environment and incorporate imagery drawn from her studies of botany, wildlife, and the Susquehanna River.

 Sue grew up in central PA, with a Pennsylvania Dutch heritage that valued self-reliance and a strong work ethic. She began sewing at a young age, making clothing and then quilts from the dressmaking scraps. Her early quilts were traditional, giving her an excellent grounding in sound craftsmanship.

But quilts have always followed fashion and reflected the trends and technologies of the times. Sue began incorporating modern design elements into her quilts, and moved them from the bed onto the wall. Today she employs surface design techniques including cyanotype, mono printing, digital image transfer, and needle felting as the basis for works that also incorporate hand painted fabrics, hand and machine stitching, and beadwork.

For Flora, Fauna and Flow, Sue is exhibiting a large group of quilts from her ongoing textile explorations. Flora is represented by quilts depicting plants from the garden and leaves collected in the woods. Jack in the Pulpit was inspired by a specimen that volunteered in a flowerbed. She printed photographs of it, and made cyanotypes and monoprints directly from the leaves, harvesting only one or two a year over a three year period so as not to stress the plant. Plume Poppy is a life sized depiction of this huge, architecturally grand perennial plant. The vivid white and Prussian blue of the cyanotype is softened by stitching and beadwork. Sycamore uses leaf prints, photographs, and extensive beadwork with semi-precious stones to represent the textural richness of these splendid trees.

Jack in the Pulpit

The Fauna quilts feature skulls of native mammals; she is fascinated by their structure and inherent beauty. She photographs the skulls and uses the images to make cyanotype prints, and combines them with leaf prints and bits of vintage needlework. Skunk and Garlic Mustard has both the skull and the delicate small bones of the skeleton—her daughter found them and gifted them to her for Mother’s Day. Groundhog and Green Bean records the saga of when groundhog was victorious and the vegetable garden was subsequently fenced in.

Skunk and Garlic Mustard

Sue grew up near the Susquehanna, and loves to hike the river trails in Lancaster and York Counties. The ever-changing conditions of the river are a constant source of inspiration, as evidenced by the Flow quilts. Ice Jam was made one winter when the river froze and thawed repeatedly. Sue used felted wool, hand printed cotton, and lots of sparkly beads to capture that experience. Her tour de force, 52 Ways to Look at the River, was a yearlong project in which she travelled to the river each week, took a picture, then made a fiber panel in response. At the end of the year she combined them all into a huge quilt that marks the passage of time and the seasons.

52 Ways to Look at the River