The Ethereal Work of Jen Siegrist

Tonight I thought I would share the work of a fellow Ohio fiber artist, Jen Siegrist.  I met Jen through Studio Art Quilt Associates and am grateful for the opportunity that SAQA brought.  Jen's work captivates me, for a variety of reasons.  She does work in basically two different styles.  One is more graphic and she often uses it to express emotion, often searing and raw views into life, sometimes her own.  The other is otherworldly, and probably exemplifies the mystical part in her business name , Mystic Earth Quilts.  It's this style which I am going to concentrate on tonight.  You can see her other work in her gallery on Mystic Earth Quilts.

Jen Siegrist, "Bird of Paradise in the Barren Wood," detail.

Jen works with hand-dyeing and discharging fabrics, layering, removing, replacing color and shading.  She sometimes works with the drip cloths, fabric she has placed to catch the drips from her hand-dyed fabrics.  She will often take the multicolored pieces of fabric and hang them in her studio, looking and thinking until the fabric communicates with her what it wants to be, and what she needs to express.

Bird of Paradise, reverse.

Working with a basic, 1970s era sewing machine, Jen is able to coax wonderful pieces from her raw materials.  When I first saw this piece, and another one "Aurora Objectified," I thought it had been done on a long-arm machine as the stitching was regular and handled particularly well...and for the size of the pieces, much more evenly than one would expect when one is shoving large pieces of fabric under an old, often cranky machine.

Jen's work really brings home the concept in quilting what my husband used to express in triathlons.  As he passed people riding expensive custom and high-tec bikes on hills and on the flats on his standard "off the line" bike" he would comment "It isn't what's under your feet, it's what's under the hood," meaning you are only as good as the training and expertise you have in your soul and physical body.  I have to say, Jen has what it takes in her sould and fingers.

I'm happy to say that Jen has recently been accepted into two major shows, and I can't wait to see what she makes next.  She's showing at WAH Center Grand Harvest show in Brooklyn (two pieces, "Native Americans" and "Two Bottles to Fill one Challice", and Quilts=Art=Quilts at the Schweinfurth gallery ("Totem, Dance with Me.").



I am participating in Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Fridays," so if you want to see other blogs dealing with fiber and quilting, check out  her blog to find more fiberlicious links. .