Featured Artist Sandy Teepen

Artist Sandy Teepen creates delightfully colorful and textural fiber collage collections. Enjoy and visit her website to see more of her portfolio.

 

 

My passion, resilience, and deep love of the tactile nature of textiles are the driving forces of my career as a fabric artist. My story began as an art student and then a costume designer, where I honed my eye for detail and my appreciation for fabric in all forms. I moved through a period of crocheting and weaving.

 

 

But then, in the 1980s, after being hit by a car, I found myself physically challenged. I needed to reevaluate how to express myself artistically. Turning back to the sewing machine, I rediscovered my love of fabric—the colors, the patterns, the textures.

 

 

Rebuilding my strength and flexibility, I became a quilter. Absorbing the history of the art form, I pushed myself to create work that reflected my own experiences and preferences.

 

 

I explored new techniques, new textiles from other cultures and new ways to incorporate my quilted fiber art into wearable (scarfs, handbags) and usable pieces (tablecloths, upholstery for chairs), as well as wall art. I moved into my eighth decade with renewed vigor.

 

 

Finding fabric with vegetable and fruit motifs led to a Vegetable Garden series. Friends bringing back fabric from Africa spurred me to enrich my collection with a new vibrant line of collages.

 

 

Delightful commercial fabric with map designs pushed me to a create a Map series. Meeting an architect turned graffiti photographer, I experimented with photos on cloth to offer a modern take on the traditional quilt form.

 

 

I find that my penchant for connecting artists with each other, developing communities of talented artists and enthusiastic art lovers, also drives me. Supporting others and their creative vision delights me. Lending support to galleries and exhibitions is a natural extension.

 

 

My work inside and outside the studio is a reminder that creativity has no age limit.

 

Sandy Teepen invites you to follow on Instagram and Facebook.

 

 

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