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Reeva Shaffer
b. 1945 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; lives in Oakton, VA
Selected Exhibitions:
William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum,
GA; UJA/Federation Gallery, NY; Petroff Gallery, Toronto, Canada;
American Jewish Museum, PA; Goldman Gallery, Rockville, MD
In the Beginning,
2010
Nuno felting, needle felting; 84" x 90"
“
In the beginning there was chaos. God separated the chaos into the
heavens and the firmament.” The center section of this Torah Ark
curtain represents all that is to come – life forms of all types. A cal-
ligrapher with 18 years experience, Shaffer enhances her creations
with Hebrew and English lettering and decoration.
Miriam Schapiro
b. 1923 in Toronto, Canada; lives in East Hampton, NY
Selected Collections/Honors:
Museum of Modern Art, NY;
Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Boston Museum
of Fine Arts, MA; Australian National Gallery, Canberra,
Australia; John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Fellowship; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
Twinning of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden,
1989
Mixed media collage on canvas; 30.5" x 116"
Courtesy of Flomenhaft Gallery, NY
“
I felt that by making a large canvas magnificent in color,
design, and proportion, filling it with fabrics and quilt blocks,
I could raise a housewife’s lowered consciousness,” says
Miriam Shapiro.
Twinning of Adam and Eve in the Garden of
Eden
combines painting and fabric collage, and is a superb
example of femmage, a term that Schapiro coined to describe
activities of collage, assemblage, decoupage, and photomon-
tage practiced by women using traditional women’s techniques –
sewing, piercing, hooking, cutting, appliquéing, cooking,
and the like.
Deidre Scherer
b. 1944 in New York City; lives in Williamsville, VT
Selected Exhibitions:
Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, MA; Baltimore
Museum of Art, MD; Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, VT;
Williams College Museum of Art, MA
Huddle,
2010
Thread on layered fabric; 38" x 38"
“
Over the span of three years, I have nurtured this life-scale piece. Using
scissors and machine, I approach the human figure through intricately
piecing, layering, and drawing with stitching. The rich patterns of printed
material attract me for their pointillist qualities and how the eye is engaged.
This piece reveals an intensely packed, intertwined group. Not everyone sees the same figures and many see variations in
meaning. For me, fabric has become the perfect vehicle with which to narrate what is multifaceted, often non-verbal and
invisible in the human experience.”