Featured Artist Carla Fisher

Artist Carla Fisher creates intriguing and textural fiber art using natural and upcycled materials. Visit her website to see more of her work.

 

 

I didn’t start out to be an artist. In fact, it was the one thing in life that I admired in others that I never felt I could do. But life has its twists and turns…

 

 

I spent twenty-five years in the financial services industry. My husband convinced me to take early retirement so that we could travel throughout the country in a 1940s motorhome. It was a fabulous life until a heart attack, followed by several heart surgeries, and ultimately cancer, took his life. Suddenly, I had to find a way to take forty years of a “we” and turn it upside down to make a “me.”

 

 

I made the decision to go back to school to study fiber art. I attended the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At that time, the University had a program known as the Post Baccalaureate program. It allowed an individual with a degree in another field of study to prove their artistic capability through completion of the program. At that point, they would then be allowed to matriculate into an MFA program. I earned my degree from UArts in May of 2016.

 

 

Today, I sculpt with thread. Using a water soluble substrate and multiple shades of rayon embroidery threads, I create two and three dimensional watercolor styled artworks. Eroding as little as one inch at a time, I shape each curve, bloat or indentation in hopes of magnetizing the viewer with discovery.

 

 

Often, I will add materials other than thread into my work, which is always recycled. The “trash” is a metaphor for widowhood. When one loses a spouse, it’s not just the loss of a best friend or a loved one; it’s also the loss of a daily lifestyle. You feel lost, empty, wasted, useless, discarded, just like we regard trash.

 

 

My goal is to take these throwaways and give them new life as something beautiful, just as art itself did for me. My reward is the viewer’s visceral response of surprise when I disclose the materials I’ve used. Tyvek envelopes, Keurig coffee filters, Shout color catchers, dryer lint, plastic produce bags and packing materials are just a few of the materials that morph into art in my studio.

 

 

To gain texture and mass, I began working in encaustic. The movement of the wax stirs my soul and suddenly I feel like a real artist.

 

 

Nature is my inspiration. I am in awe of the colors, the textures and the patina that is painted on the landscape of our world! Much of my work contains moss, lichen and fungi which make for breathtaking surprises on a simple walk.

 

 

My goal is to stir emotions within the viewers of my abstract renderings, helping them to feel something that perhaps they’ve never felt before. When they view my more representational works, I aspire to help them see what I see in the tiniest of details and draw them in.

 

 

I now know that the artist within me was always there. It took a life-altering event to help me experience the joy of sharing it with others.

 

Artist Carla Fisher invites you to follow her on her personal and professional Facebook pages.

 

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