'Imperfect Pattern/Relative Embellishment' to open at Hillestad Gallery

            Wendy Weiss, director of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery and exhibition curator, announces the First Friday April 6 opening of an exhibition, "Imperfect Pattern/Relative Embellishment," featuring work by three Nebraska women artists.

            Pattern resonates across each artist's work with quilted fabric, embroidery, beads, structure and native materials. Artists Rebecca Williams, Phyllis Moore, and Susan Bertino explore family history and personal environment using textile materials in unconventional ways. The show runs until April 27.

            Williams has been fascinated with the continuity of pattern expressed across time and cultures and has found a variety of ways to express these patterns with her unique voice. Lately, her work has involved printing complex prairie-inspired patterns onto fabric, layered atop embellished prairie grasses she collects on her land near Bennet. She has also found inspiration from her Czech heritage. Floral patterns taken from everyday folk wear become part of her vocabulary.

            Moore has created a covey of great aunts in fiber. The magnum opus of her creations is Great Aunt Ruth who was six feet tall with an art textile of the same height. In contrast, Great Aunt Sudie, who was tiny and stooped, looks like an aged Sunbonnet Sue. The working patterns for the great aunts were torn from paper. Added texture for the art comes from butcher paper, wrapping paper, tissue paper and brown corrugated tree wrap. Her visual images are drawn from the imagination, and the few facts known about these women of her family.

            Bertino lavishly embroiders surfaces with beads, semi-precious stones, pearls, copper and bone to create narratives of both global and personal tales. For example, when her mother asked her to stitch a bag in browns, she did. She says, "Being part Cherokee Indian, it was only natural to place a bear wandering below the moon in the woods. The bear is a symbol of protection in Native American beliefs."

            The Friends of the Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery will host a reception in the gallery from 5 to 7 p.m. April 6, commencing a series of First Friday open evenings. The Hillestad Gallery is part of the Department of Textiles, Clothing and Design in the UNL College of Education and Human Sciences. The gallery is on the second floor of the Home Economics Building on East Campus, on 35th Street north of East Campus Loop. Hours are 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday and by appointment. Admission is free. Guest parking is available near the building and metered stalls are located in the Nebraska East Union lot. For more information, call 402-472-2911 or visit http://textilegallery.unl.edu. School and community groups are welcome. Call in advance to arrange a tour or download the tour request form from the gallery webpage. A limited amount of funding is available for underwriting bus or van expenses to bring in student groups.

Writer: Wendy Weiss