JANE SAUER GALLERY Presents Carol Shinn

Carol Shinn
New Works

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release

Contact		Jane Sauer Owner/Director Jane Sauer Gallery 652 Canyon Road Santa Fe, NM jsauer@jsauergallery.com 505-995-8513
For Images		Richard Boyle Communications Director rboyle@jsauergallery.com
Website		www.jsauergallery.com
Winter Hours		Tuesday - Saturday 10 am - 5 pm
Exhibition		"New Works" by Carol Shinn
Dates		December 4, 2009 - January 4, 2010
		Opening Reception Friday, December 4 5:00 - 7:00 pm

Artist will be present
Carol will give a talk at 2 pm on Saturday, December 5, 2009

JANE SAUER GALLERY presents “New Works,” an exhibition of “freestyle machine stitching on fabric” by textile artist Carol Shinn.

Carol’s technique of machine embroidery derives from her special skill of drawing. She layers different colored threads one upon another to completely cover her canvas, creating an incredibly dense and rich surface. Most remarkable is that Carol’s “painting by sewing machine” is done freestyle under the sewing machine needle.

Carol Shinn is a studio artist who lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. She is known internationally for photo-realistic machine-stitched images. Her embroidered scenes suggest a narrative without telling a specific story; the story instead becomes the one the viewer tells about his or her relation to the locale depicted. Her work focuses on the moods evoked by place, especially by the contrast between interiors and exteriors. Carol is particularly interested in the way that doors and windows frame our perceptions of our immediate surroundings, focusing our attention on the beauty of the overlooked, and the mundane objects, often ignored, that are the very things that create our special sense of place.

Carol holds a BFA from the University of Colorado and a MFA from Arizona State University. She has taught many classes and workshops across the United States including at Arrowmont, Penland and Haystack. She has also taught at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ and at Mesa Community College, Mesa, AZ.

Carol’s work is in numerous public and private collections. Her work has been featured in such publications as American Craft, Embroidery, Fiberarts, Georgia Review, and Surface Design Journal and in books such as The Nature of Craft and the Penland Experience, Discovery: 50 Years of Craft Experience at Haystack Mtn. School of Craft, Celebrating the Stitch by Barbara Lee Smith, Fiberarts Design Book Six, and Fiberarts Design Book Seven.

"HAND TOOLS"
18 1/2" x 13" (Framed 25 1/2" x 20")

In October 2009, Carol won the coveted Fine Art Prize in the Pfaff International Embroidery Challenge, a biannual International Prize for use of a sewing machine in accomplished and creative ways. An exhibition, "Landscape, Let Us Travel” opened in London to accompany the Awards Ceremony, featuring the work of the winners. Carol's extraordinary artistic ability has been recognized for over 25 years and in March 2009 Interweave Press released "Freestyle Machine Embroidery" written by Carol Shinn. This much-awaited and seminal book on machine embroidery as seen in art, not only is a beautiful illustrated and clearly written book on how to, but contains one rich illustration after another of what other artists using the same technique are accomplishing. Carol's generosity of information and dedication as a teacher are at the core of this publication.

Jane Sauer Gallery recently participated in the SOFA Art Fair (Sculptural Objects and Functional Art) on the Navy Pier in Chicago. Shinn's work was an immediate sensation, selling out the first day of the fair. This speaks more than words about this extraordinary artist's ability to communicate with an audience. It is hard to leave once standing in front of Carol's work. The viewer is fascinated by the power of a relatively small image that consists of a build up of simple stitches and changes in color to produce a very large "ah-hah" experience. There is the surprise of the technique and more importantly, the ability of the image to say so much in so small a space.

Click on the image to see available artworks

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