Wendy Kendrick
Gahanna, OH
Kendrick loves the interplay of color, patterns and shapes within her quilted work, which is reminiscent of her earlier collage and mixed media creations.
MessageColoring books and crayons are some of my earliest memories of art. The strong black lines on the off white pages containing simplified images of animals, cartoon characters and everyday objects were always exciting to fill with an array of colors. My Mom always told a story about discovering my artistic gifts after repeatedly telling me at the age of four that I had traced a squirrel from my coloring book, until placing my drawing over the image and it didn’t fit. Over time the coloring pages have been replaced with seemingly endless yards of commercial and African fabrics. My crayons have been replaced with an assortment of brightly colored and patterned cottons, which are cut into shapes and pieced together with black thread, much like a jigsaw puzzle. In college the art instructors told me that outlining in black was not good, but I never believed it. I still love to include strong black outlines in my work but now they’re created with felt. What can I say? I’m a grownup kid at heart celebrating colors, patterns, shapes and culture through my quilted artwork.
Statement
As an artist, I love creating stitched portrait masks which reflect the complexities of people and cultures which are of great interest to me. Upon our birth our individual journeys begin, life experiences which become the layers or fabric of our lives. Individual stories we each carry for the duration of our lives, which are as unique as our fingerprints. By fusing together different colors, patterns and layered shapes, each portrait mask tells a story which is intentionally left to the viewers own interpretation,
In 2010, while participating in a women’s artist exchange to Tanzania, I observed the many colors and patterns that the local women of that country would dress in. This layering of textiles really appealed to me and suggested a freedom of expression that up to that point had not been my experience. Upon returning home I started to push aside my previous thoughts which came from a more Eurocentric based standard of textile design and usage and began applying this new way of "seeing" to my work. In 2012, I created my first quilt and since then have enjoyed creating stitched pieces with skills first learned as a child from my grandmother.
My love of colors, patterns, shapes and their interplay within a piece serves as the basis for what I create...a celebration of people and cultures through stitched portrait masks.
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