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June Issue 2003

Black Mountain Center for the Arts in Black Mountain, NC, Features Works by Heather Allen

Heather Allen, a professional textile artist who lived in Asheville, NC, for the last 8 years and who has recently relocated to New England, will be featured at the Black Mountain Center for the Arts in Black Mountain, NC. The exhibition entitled, Journey, featuring a new body of mixed media work will open June 6 and continue through June 28, 2003.

The inspiration for Allen's new body of work and her new way of working, developed out of her recent personal journey to relocate to the sea. While taking an evening ceramics class at a local ceramic center, Allen found in the direct tactile medium a freedom to explore the subconscious. The freedom of working in a new medium, and the directness that clay allows, tapped into a spontaneous and intuitive element of Allen. In her previous large architectural work Allen went through a labor-intensive process of sketching and translating her images into painted textiles. The work based on this process could take anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months to complete. In her new manner of working directly with a material, the small, intimate scale and immediacy of the process allows Allen to retain or capture the immediacy of an idea or subconscious feeling in a three dimensional form.

In creating the works for this exhibition, Allen worked without sketching, allowing for the direct expression of her subconscious and intuitive ideas. The exhibition spans 2 1/2 years and is a visual diary and exploration of herself on a journey to return to live by the sea.

"I see the vessel or boat form as one of the most universal and yet individual forms. I am using the vessel/pod shape as a point of departure, to capture an emotion, an idea or response to a specific period of time, similar to a journal entry," says Allen. Simultaneously archetypal and contemporary, these vessels celebrate life as a journey. Each piece is a journey into the unknown, there is a dialogue between herself and the material culminating in a piece that allows her to see and understand herself more clearly. The work speaks on a personal and at the same time universal level.

Allen holds an MFA from the University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth. In 1995 she received a NEA Regional Fellowship and a Tennessee Arts Commission Artist Fellowship. Allen's work has been shown in invitational and juried exhibitions internationally, including Handmade: Shifting Paradigms at the Singapore Art Museum. Other exhibitions include the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, the Smithsonian Craft Show at the National Building Museum, the Blue Spiral 1 Gallery and the Asheville Art Museum. Her work is represented in numerous private and public collections in Australia, British West Indies and the United States.

Allen's work has been featured in American Craft Magazine, Fiberarts Magazine, Surface Design Journal, Art Quilt Magazine as well as numerous books. Allen has written Weaving Contemporary Rugs published by Lark Books as well as articles and exhibition reviews for Surface Design Journal. Her teaching positions and lecture venues include the Penland School of Crafts, Arrowmont School, the University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth, and the Appalachian Center for Crafts.

The Black Mountain Center for the Arts showcases the rapidly evolving, innovative, and provocative artwork of artist from across the United States.

For more information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings or call the gallery at 828/669-0930.

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