6 January - 1 February 2009
The work of Utah fiber artists Susan Madden and Joyce Marder takes two traditional arts—quilting and basketry—into unexpected forms. While Madden works in fabric and Marder weaves branches, both artists draw inspiration from nature and stretch their chosen media beyond the expected. Layering bits of fabric, one small piece at a time, Madden grows her art quilts organically, letting the image reveal itself as she works. Similarly, Marder weaves willow, dogwood, and other twigs she prunes alongside roadsides and riverbanks to create fiber sculptures, whose shape and form emerge as she twines the branches together.
Studying under Marilyn Miller, Jim Wilcox and others, Madden has worked in a wide variety of media prior to fabric, including serigraphs, pastels and oils. Madden’s serigraphs were accepted into the Utah Art Festival and Bountiful Art Center, and her work has been included in many juried shows. Ten years ago, her interest moved toward art quilting. Her long-term love of the Utah landscape and a year of weekly visits to Antelope Island to observe birds and plants and the waters of the Great Salt Lake, precipitated her current body of work.
 From 1980 to 2002, Marder pursued a career as a nonfiction writer while simultaneously indulging her passion for lifelong learning and volunteering. She learned how to weave baskets as a docent pioneer during this time. Her early original designs found a market, and she was invited to teach basketry at the University of Utah’s Fiber Arts program. Pushing her medium beyond traditional basketry, Marder created her first fiber sculpture during this time. Since 1996, her sculptures have been included in a number of exhibits and juried shows around the State of Utah. Marder’s personal ritual has been to make one sculpture each fall, when the colors are at their peak and the branches are naturally pliable. Her organic shapes exude intention and serendipity.
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