Rhoda Taylor
Taylor Maid – a Fiberarts Exhibition
Rhoda Taylor is a western Pennsylvania fiberartist who has been working with fabric and fibers most of her life. Following retirement from her career as a professor of biology at Slippery Rock University, she took several quilting classes in Slippery Rock's Institute for Learning in Retirement and fell in love with the variety of fabrics available for quilting. This compelled her to embark on a “second career” - making wall hangings and other kinds of fabric and fiber art pieces. She joined the Fiber Arts Guild of Pittsburgh and began taking a number of workshops from nationally known artists through the Guild, the Pittsburgh Society for Contemporary Craft, the Nancy Crow Timber Frame Barn in Ohio, and Quilt University (online), in which she has learned a variety of techniques to make her own fabrics and design her own works of fabric art.
Rhoda, as a biologist, is fascinated by the patterns and colors which occur in nature and produces patterns on fabrics by hand dyeing, bleach discharging, and rust-printing, and is delighted with the results. One of the most exciting things to her is ironing the damp dyed, discharged or rust-printed fabrics and seeing the wonderful marks and patterns develop almost serendipitously! She then “paints” with these patterned fabrics, assembling them, often with commercial fabrics which complement her own fabrics, into works of art. She sometimes incorporates digital photographs, and embellishes some works with beads, ribbons, sea shells, metallic threads and other small objects. Her embellished coffee filters have proven popular and one large piece using coffee filters was chosen for this years Associated Artists of Pittsburgh annual show.
Her work has been juried into more than 40 fine art exhibitions and several pieces have been awarded prizes. In 2011 she had two solo exhibits in MD and will return again this fall for solo exhibits in the same galleries – the Blanche Ames Gallery of the Unitarian/Universalist congregation in Frederick and the Paint Branch Unitarian/Universalist congregation gallery in Silver Spring. In 2014 she also had a solo exhibit in the Elaine Biondi Gallery Space of the Monroeville, PA, Public Library and was part of a two person exhibit in the Red Brick Gallery in Foxburg, PA. Her “Pretzels & Champagne” wall hanging was chosen for inclusion in 500 Art Quilts published by Lark Books in 2010. Her works are in a number of private collections in several states and she has pieces for sale at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, the Red Brick Artists' Co-operative Gallery in Foxburg, PA, the Pea Island Art Gallery in Salvo, NC, and the Indian Town Gallery in Buxton, NC.
Rhoda belongs to the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Society of Artists, the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh, and the international Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA).
The artist will be pleased to discuss her work at an opening reception Sunday, September 7th, from 12:30—2 p.m. in the Blanche Ames Gallery, located, with the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick, at 4880 Elmer Derr Road, 21703, off Hwy 15/340, the Mount Zion exit, SW on Elmer Derr about one mile. For further directions and weekday hours, usually 9:30 – 4, Wed – Fri, please call the office (301-473-7680). All are welcome.