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Laura Kamian McDermott
I am a textile artist with a thirty-year history of showing up to my beloved Richmond, CA studio (or sketchbook!) as many days of the week as I can manage. I use labor-intensive textile techniques to make work that insists on the value of creative labor. I believe in the power of the handmade to address social ills, support mental and community health, and bring out humanity’s more positive traits. I use bright colors to abstract my domestic, natural, and architectural surroundings, with earnestness and humor. A Crockett, CA resident and San Francisco State University graduate, my work has recently been shown at the Epperson Gallery in Crockett, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, the Richmond Art Center and the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles.
Resume (PDF)
MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST
Category: Fiber Artist; Handweaving; Mixed Media; Visual Artist
Medium: Fiber/Fabric; Mixed Media; Textiles
Artist Statement
Please provide a brief description of your creative process, motivations, and inspirations:
This woven tapestry is based on an old charcoal drawing of my younger, somewhat unhinged and definitely unhappy self, sketching myself in the mirror in a room with wild wallpaper. I reclaimed and updated this design as a quarantine self-portrait in 2020, with the welcome understanding that I am now an adult better able to weather troubles and challenges and have a deeper sense of self-reliance and trust. Weaving helps. I have always loved Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” about a woman going mad while holed up in a room with wallpaper that alternately torments her and offers her solutions. I designed my wallpaper to be a place that I wanted to spend 2020, when I knew the act of weaving could see me through all that was being asked of all of us. Tapestry weaving can be a slow medium. This is a large piece- about 49” x 58”, and my most detailed to date- 2020 turned into 2021, 2022, 2023 now 2024! I finished this piece in Spring 2024.
