Sandra Scott
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Selections from Monroe quiltmaker Sandra Scott’s multi-hued artistic works capturing the rich beauties of the natural world in fabric are on display in an exhibition titled “Nature Impressions” continuing through April 12.
Scott, a Florida native who first took up quiltmaking nearly two decades ago, has earned the acclaim of art critics and a growing following among quilt collectors for her uncommon eye for harmonious and complex color combinations and her extraordinary skills in the fabric designs of her works. During her residency in suburban Chicago during the 1990s, she staged a series of exhibitions at area community and cultural centers, galleries and specialty shops that established her artistic reputation.
Scott’s creative process in quiltmaking begins with cutting dozens of small pieces of fabric in a dazzling diversity of colors and experimenting with placements on a large white felt backing on her workroom wall. As she conceives the design of the work and begins to flesh out its details, she seeks to achieve a subtle blending of colors that art critics have compared to the palate of an Impressionist painter. She sews pieces either by hand or by machine to complete each quilt.
“I try to picture the beauty of the Earth in my quilts,” Scott says. “I have color wheels and charts and books about balancing the right number of darks with lights. But you have to draw most upon what is inside of you and what you see around you.”
Since the early 1990s, Scott has produced a series of works using the technique of colorwash quilting, in which the artist carefully selects fabrics to achieve the visual effect of moving gradually from one point in the color spectrum to another across the breadth of the work. The richness and sophistication of her color selection, ranging from vibrant to muted, evoke the natural beauty of the flora and fauna themes of the works selected for her “Nature Impressions” exhibition. Whether her theme is the blue heron or a prairie wildflower, Scott finds that “the natural world is full of color and harmony. I want my quilts to celebrate God’s creation.”
Her artistic vision at times leads her to return to the same theme, searching for new variations and fresh interpretations until she exhausts its possibilities. “You do a piece and, when it’s all finished, you look at it and think, ‘I can do that a little better.’ You try harder in your next piece, and it keeps on going. Look at Monet: Why did he paint so many water lilies? You get hooked on a concept and just go, go, go until the ideas run out.”
Scott has staged previous solo exhibitions of her works at the Yale Art Place in New Haven, arts centers in Rolling Meadows and Barrington, Ill., and other cultural, community, retail and corporate venues nationwide. She has also exhibited at art shows in Connecticut, New York, Illinois, Florida, and North Carolina, garnering recognition at a number of juried shows over the past 16 years. Recent honors include first- and third-place awards at the NSQG Show in Somers, N.Y., the Taunton Press and Danbury Savings Bank awards at the SCAN Art Show in Newtown, and second place in the Beaufort Juried Art Show in Washington, N.C.
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