Northfield fiber artist Pamela Druhen brings her unique quilts to the Gifford Medical Center art gallery on Oct. 3. Druhen creates intricate, realistic quilted landscapes and florals, which she calls “Threadscapes.”
Glowingly reviewed in Seven Days and the Vermont Sunday Magazine, Druhen got her start in fiber, specifically fabric and thread, in 1996 and since has gone on to win awards for her work. In 2001, she began winning ribbons in competitions and has competed internationally since 2002. In 2010 she took a second place in the Art Quilt Miniature category at Houston’s International Quilt Festival. The following year, she won an honorable mention at “Celebrate Spring” in Cincinnati and a first place in Houston’s International Quilt Festival – A World of Beauty.
Druhen uses the fiber medium to explore the relationships between light, depth, color and texture in the natural world. Her work is defined by the four seasons as she experiences them in Vermont. The viewer, she notes, begins from a position standing on the edge of each piece, ready to step in and explore the landscape and beyond.
She uses quilting and heavy threadwork as design elements, which enhance the texture, movement and depth of each piece. Newer work incorporates silk or procion dyes that she applies with a brush on silk or cotton to create the image that she then embroiders with rayon or trilobal polyester threadwork and highly detailed quilting.
“My designs are all original,” Druhen notes. “I work from photos, which are mostly taken by my husband. At times I work in a series, and I occasionally will repeat a design using a different season or a different orientation, but each piece is one of a kind.”
Her work has been featured in several special exhibits, and in June of last year she curated a special exhibit for the Vermont Quilt Festival titled “The Art of Quilt.” The exhibit showcased the current work of 12 Vermont quilt/fiber artists, including Druhen.
She can also be found teaching and lecturing at various quilt guilds and in the studio creating new pieces.
Her show at Gifford runs through Dec. 5 and art gallery coordinator Julie Fischer is thrilled to have Druhen’s work in the Randolph medical center’s gallery.
“It’s been some time since we’ve had a fiber artist come to our hospital gallery,” says Fischer. “I’m excited to bring such unique, high-quality art to our patients and visitors. I have no doubt these fabric landscapes will be a feast for the senses and evoke strong, positive reactions, mostly like awe.”
The Gifford Gallery is located just inside the hospital’s main entrance at 44 S. Main St. (Route 12) in Randolph. Call Fischer at (802) 728-2324 for more information.
