OLD FIREHOUSE ART CENTER

Sticks & Stones
Contemporary Fiber Art by
Vita Marie Lovett & Denise Labadie
and
New works in quilts by
Mary Tully

Old Firehouse Art Center bring together three artists using thread, dyes and fabrics to create incredible works distinctly their own. Two exhibits explore these materials – hand-dyed fabrics, stripping, quilting and “painting” with thread – as a way to capture a time and a place.

Longmont artist, Denise Labadie’s quilts are most typically images of Irish megalithic stones, Irish landscapes, and/or sacred stone passageways – dolmens, cairns, burial chambers, stone circles, standing stones, ancient stone churches and monasteries, forgotten cemeteries, and the like. Irish “stone hunting” is also a great excuse for having to make repeated trips back to her family’s ancestral homeland.
Denise has a profound love of the Irish landscape and its many ruins, themes that are central to her quilting. To best express the moods and textures inherent in these complex landscapes, Denise uses a wide variety of colors, fabrics, and threads. She custom hand paints her fabrics and then cuts out, assembles, and quilts each individual stone to achieve the most realistic look possible, whereas the more abstract landscapes are created using a unique stripping technique that very successfully mimics the intimacy, shadowing, and tones and hues so common to Irish vistas.
Denise received an Associate of Arts Degree from College of the Redwoods in Eureka, California. She has been juried or invited into numerous national and international shows including The International Quilt Society (2006), The American Quilt Society (2006), Sacred Threads (2001, 2003, 2004, 2005), Artist as Quiltmaker (2002), Art Quilts at the Whistler (2002), and others, winning several Best of Shows, and has had several solo shows as well. Denise also makes commissioned quilts of other people’s sacred locations.

VITA MARIE LOVETT ARTIST STATEMENT & BIO
My subject matter is a simple door, yet I find that it is open to so many possibilities. I've always loved architecture and antiques. I thought it would be interesting to try and combine these into my art quilts. Every time I would pass an old barn I would take note of its doors and hinges. I feel that the shapes and textures of old structures lend themselves to re-interpretation in fabric. I enjoy the challenge of creating the illusion of rustic wood and peeling paint with thread. That's how my series of "Primitive Doors" began.
Barns have become a landmark of rural America - fast on their way to disappearing. I thought through fabric and thread this would be an interesting way to preserve a piece of our past.
Doors are part of everyday life, dividing the inside from the outside. They set powerful boundaries, whether welcoming you in or warning you to keep out. Doors prompt one to think about lives and cultures of others - simply by their style, their color or how they are adorned. I invite you to use your imagination, cross a threshold and travel through my "primitive doors".
I went to college at the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale, majoring in Commercial Interior Design. I worked for an architectural firm in Miami for 12 years and also did free-lance graphic design. I am currently working full time as a mixed media fiber artist. I live in Maryville, Tennessee where I have a studio that I share with 2 cats.
Exhibitions 2007 / 2008
Columbus Museum of Art, Surface Design, Columbus, Ohio
Old Firehouse Art Center, Longmont, Colorado
Museum of the American Quilt Society, Paducah, KY
Whistler Museum of Art, On the Road Exhibit, Lowell, MA
Morris Galleries, Primitive Door Series, Sweetwater,TN
Visions-The Art Quilt, Oceanside Museum of Art, San Diego, CA
Recent Publications
Visions –The Art Quilt- 2006
Contemporary Quilting Book - 2005
Fiberarts Design Book 7 – May 2004
Southern Living Magazine - June 2002

MEMBER’S GALLERY
New Quilts by Mary Tully
ARTIST STATEMENT
My present series of quilts have been influenced by places I have worked or by places I have visited in my travels. I have always felt the need to work with my hands and need to be creating something at all times be it quilts, baskets or paintings. Each quilt is a new journey and the process is the most important aspect of quiltmaking for me. The contemporary quilt allows me more freedom for self-expression in design and color. Most of my quilts have a story or memories for me and the ideas for new quilts never end. I have also met many wonderful and interesting people thorough quilting. I have found a great deal of satisfaction working with fabric. It seems to take on a life of its own as you work with it, and the layering and quilting brings another quality and dimension to the finished design, not only visual but tactile.
Exhibitions, Invitational
2000 Showcase Invitational Art Show. Longmont Council for the Arts. Longmont, CO.
1999 Patchwork et Arts Textile. Association Francaise de Patchwork Delegation
Ardeche. Villeneuve-de-Berg, France. Invites d’Honneur
1995 Contemporary Quilts. Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum. Golden, CO.
1994 Featured Quilter. Interfaith Quilters. Longmont, Co.
1994 Quilts influenced by American Indian Designs. Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum.
Golden. Co.
1994 Quilters Unlimited Showcase. Bartle Hall. Kansas City. MO.

Exhibitions-Selected Juried
2000 3-D Juried Exhibition. Old Firehouse Art Center. Longmont, CO.
2000 Piece in the Rockies. Colorado Quilting Council. Estes Park CO. 1998,1996
1999 Small Works. Front Range Contemporary Quilters. Boulder Public Library. CO.