Textile Arts Center has a fabulous blog full of wonderful fiber artists so many in fact it’s just hard to keep up sometimes with everything cool that they share. I don’t even try but sometimes I just want to post on the same artists over here because they’re great! Such was the case when I read about Anna Betbeze both in The New York Times as well as their blog.
Anna’s work is currently showing in NYC at the Kate Werble Gallery until March 12, it’s entitled Moss Garden, pretty appropriately I feel. She took traditional Flokati rugs – essentially handwoven shag carpets — and edited them by burning and cutting them creating entirely new and different works of wall art.
Anna is from Mobile, Alabama – she did her undergrad work at UGA and then went on to get her MFA from Yale a few years ago.
The above is a close up of one of the pieces / rugs. I haven’t found too much info about her dying process but it seems that with her works she’s able to create a great amount of depth not just due to the tactile quality of her “canvas” but also with her color choices and their overall tonality.
In reading some of the critiques of the show it seems like people weren’t super into the large cut out works of hers – I tend to agree I like the ones that are more whole in their appearance. That said, multiple people noted that seeing them online versus in person really changes the experience and so I hope when I’m in NYC in a few weeks I can check them out.
Mmmm, wool.