Tradition/Improvisation
Fiber Arts by Kristina Snook
Indivisible, Kristina Snook, 39”x56”, Cotton fabric and batting, Machine pieced and quilted
Folley Hall Gallery
November 8th - January 15th, 2022
These are not your grandmother’s quilts. Like a dream journal of images generated by the unconscious, Kristina Snook’s quilted works hark back to where she came from, while departing from traditional designs. Using age-old techniques from her native Pennsylvania, Snook stitches quilt hangings that explore color and pattern and their relationships. With knowledge of the traditional Pennsylvania German symmetrical designs, she moves into new territory creating asymmetrical out-of-square explosions of color, evoking a feeling of movement and delighting the eye.
-Judith Wrend, Exhibition Curator & Gallery Committee
Exhibition Reception and Artist Talk
Thursday, November 11th
5:30pm to 7:30pm
Artist Statement: As I was creating these works in 2019 and 2020, I was contemplating the roots of my inspiration. Quilting was an act against the cacophony of the current social and political discord. I pondered what to say if I, like so many Americans, was told to “go back to where I came from.” I wondered what exactly that means when relatives and neighbors hurl statements like that at each other intending to perpetuate the constructs of dominance. I am of Pennsylvania German ancestry. A cultural group who emigrated to what is now known as South Eastern and South Central Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th Centuries for the most part to escape religious and political persecution. I seek mental solace in the art and practice of creating from the wellspring of inspiration in the stitches labored by the hands of quilters and fiber artists over decades. I seek solace in the work that places varied colors and textures side by side in ways that may not predictably line up. I seek solace in the faith that these asymmetrical shapes and lines create quite literally an unexpectedly comforting blanket of color. My works are a nod to the patterns invented by quilters of the past. I use traditional ways of creating quilts as a jumping off point for my improvisational works. My stitches provide me a continual reflective pathway to going back to where I came from.