Julia E. Pfaff & Mary Swezey
Pattern and Place

May 26 - June 17, 2023

Textiles

We've been friends since the early 90s when we met  at VCU. While our textile work has taken different paths and has dealt with different subject matter, we have always shared an interest in the combination of printing and stitching. We recently realized that we were working in very similar ways focusing on an intimate scale and hand embroidery. Neither of us have shown recently in Richmond and felt Artspace would be a perfect venue for our work.

Artist statement
Julia E. Pfaff: Quilts on an Intimate scale

Julia’s work in this exhibition has been supported by an adjunct research grant given by VCUarts.

I was originally inspired by the work of the conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth to present quilts as art within a gallery context.  Moving beyond the conceptualists’ appropriation of found domestic objects, I chose to maintain the integrity of the object ~ a quilt ~ and do the sewing myself.  In the late 1970’s, the choice to work in the domestic medium of stitched fabric was partly a feminist statement and partly political.  My relationship with fabric and stitching has grown to a professional focus and matured into a lifelong commitment to material.  My goal is the creation of a contemplative object, both beautiful and evocative, both well-crafted and spontaneous in design.

My work in Pattern and Place is on an intimate scale and explores the textures and forms of woven fabric with the stitched line.  Starting with white fabric and working with formalist concerns, I dye, print, and embroider. I’m selecting interesting patterns and textures to draw on with hand stitching.  The final fabric is quilted in a way that uses the sewing machine as a drawing tool adding an additional layer of linear design and texture.

Biography

Julia E Pfaff has been pushing the limits of contemporary quilting for over 35 years. With an undergraduate degree in Art History and Printmaking from the University of Toronto and a Masters of Fine Art degree from Virginia Commonwealth University she divides her time between being an educator and studio artist.  For over twenty-five years she worked as an archaeological technical artist in Greece, Egypt and Jordan.  Her quilted constructions have been exhibited at the American Craft Museum in New York, the Textile Museum in Washington DC, and at several international locations. A recent recipient of a 2019-2020 Professional Artist Fellowship from the Virginia Museum of Fine Art she was also a recipient of an Individual Artist’s Fellowship from the Virginia Commission for the Art in 2000 and again in 2019.  She teaches at both the community and college level. Her quilts have been exhibited extensively and can be found in numerous national collections and publications.

Website: juliapfaffquilt.blogspot.com
Instagram: @juliae.pfaff

Artist statement
Mary Swezey

This series of embroideries is inspired by topographic maps, shifting coastlines and rivers, reflecting my longstanding interest in the growth of cities over and into fields and rural areas. The cotton and silk fabrics have been stained with tea and I have also incorporated ecoprinting in some pieces.  This technique allows leaves and flowers to leave their marks on fabric.  Most of the marks, both stained and stitched, are not planned ahead of time but evolve as I work on the piece.

Fabric as a medium is both malleable and flexible, and can absorb a multitude of processes.  Embroidery allows me to create topographic lines, to build pattern and density and to echo the shape of a leaf.  Staining fabric with tea began with an interest in trade routes and evolved into a way to explore line and add visual interest.  To reflect a layered, historied landscape my fiber pieces include embroidery, screenprinting, and ecoprinting.  My current work includes lines of imagined coastlines, water movement and topography, rust and tea stains as well as prints of plants in various stages of decay.  Ghost images of land that has been built over and plants that have decayed but retain their original bones form the visual basis for my work in fiber.

Biography

Mary Swezey has a BFA in art history from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA in fibers from Arizona State University. She received a travel grant to research and photograph Industrial Archaeology in the English Midlands. She has also studied textile techniques at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. She has taught for more than 20 years at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts through the Studio School, Youth and Family Programs and the Statewide Programs, as well as at Arizona State University, Virginia Commonwealth University’s Art Foundations Program and Longwood College. She has taught fiber-related workshops at the Visual Arts Center, the Currie Craft Center in Montreat (NC), St. Catherine’s Upper School, and Appomattox Regional Governor’s School. Recent exhibitions include the Faculty Show at VMFA Studio School, Youth and Teen Studio Staff and Faculty Show at VMFA, a solo exhibit at Pine Street Barber, and Think Small at Artspace Gallery.

Instagram: @mary.swezey
Facebook: maryswezeyart