February 26, 2004
French Knot Mosaics = color + texture
Texture and depth is what keeps bringing me back to textiles when I start to wonder why not just do paintings (painting being much quicker, after all). These sumptuous works by Mary Ruth Smith bring it all back to me as to what fiber can do that nothing else can: exquisite color combined with the mottling, shading and movement of light that only comes from the dimensionality of fiber. The blurb for Smith's exhibit reads: "As a textile artist working from a formalist approach Mary Ruth Smith relates traditional embroidery techniques to contemporary thematic concerns in a compacted, overlaid process, refining stitches and French knots into intricate works reminiscent of Byzantine mosaics."
More of her works can be found on the embroidery guild web site and at Mobilia Gallery.
image: "Tribulation" by Mary Ruth Smith; 10" X 10"; Compacted & overlaid French knots; thread
