Quilted textile artist’s work demonstrates tight connections to diverse cultural influences, jolts the power of imagination

By Brian D’Ambrosio

As an artist, Barbara Warden easily expresses the vivacity of her thoughts and opinions. She converses with fluency and cheerfulness and a visible interest upon almost any topic related to art and her own artistic pursuits.

Although her involvement within the art world cuts across many different mediums, presently Warden works in the restorative realm of quilted textile art.

Warden’s textile (or fiber) art encompasses every imaginable human attribute: from memory to language to abstract ideas of beauty, harmony, freedom, and selfhood. Widely ranging in size and color, her blended textile creations greatly appeal to the power of imagination, at once eliciting passion, appreciation, and mysterious obsession.

When studying some of her more abstract pieces, vivid and pleasing sensations form themselves amid constant, necessary, invisible movements in the brain. This metaphorically rich, nerve-based imagery influences with its undaunted firmness and deep conceptions, while providing valuable clues to a lost emotional universe embedded in abstraction.

The great Thomas Jefferson wrote in his memoirs that “the art of life is the art of avoiding pain;” Warden’s abstract textile art expresses itself best and most humanely when the artist acknowledges the systemic source of contradiction and common anxieties.

“I used to be a painter,” says Warden. “Abstract art has always interested me, and it’s where my interests are. I’m madly in love with Rembrandt, just like everybody else is. Painting for me expresses my love of color. Quilting and working with fabric became a way to get back to working with color.”

Warden enjoys combining various colors, textures and shapes in random ways, and uses improvisation as a technique to learn more about creating vivid images that suggested movement and energy.

Indeed, Warden holds dear a special bond with color, particularly red. Extreme and emotional, and resembling the color of blood, red indicates a spectrum of symbolism ranging from radical left politics to a sad state of financial indebtedness.

“Color is powerful and is a significant way of expressing emotion. The color red is fire, warmth, danger, and, at its most basic, the color of blood. Two years ago I read a book entitled The Root of Red Madder. Red madder is a plant which is used as a dye for Asian rugs. At that moment I decided to emphasize red as the dominant color in my quilts.

“I don’t think of color as neutral. I read something recently about red being a neutral color. But, there’s nothing neutral about red. Red stands for passion. Red is one of those certain colors that I respond to more than others.”

Warden’s artwork is impressive, but it is, however, her conversational tone that needs to be remarked upon: polite, indulgent, without affectation, wide-ranging, and captivating without deliberately seeking to be so.

Plus, her artistry captures the essence of a strong connection to diverse cultural influences, namely Native American and Asian.

“I’ve always loved Native American artwork and the natural dyes they use in rug making,” says Warden.

“Right now I’m focused on the Navajo and Hopi, and the fabulous colors of the blue skies and red sandstone of Arizona and New Mexico. Chinese and Japanese fine crafted embroidery has an attention to detail that’s so beautiful. Nothing is too small or insignificant to make it into a piece of Asian artwork.”

Warden discovered, alas only recently, that quilting extends the chance to recalibrate her sense of what happiness, exertion, and self-fulfillment, mean.

“Textile work is interesting because it can be functional or nonfunctional. I’m very interested in the feel of the tapestry and fabric. There’s a great deal of satisfaction that comes along with quilting. For me, art is always a learning experience.”

Boredom, vivacity, mundaneness, and exhilaration, are all hallmarks of an artist’s emotional ebb and flow. Recognizing these poignant and fickle pitfalls is one thing, putting erratic attitude and inactivity into action is another.

“Some days the last thing I want to do is sit down and go to work. Matisse considered himself a blue collar worker. He went to work to paint every day – that was his job. I’m always reminding myself not to give in to a mood.”

For Warden, quilted tapestry, similar to other artistic endeavors, provides if not the escape but the interlude from reality, the breathing space from a world filled with repetitive gestures and overcrowded anxious places.

“Quilting is solitary for me. But for a lot of people it’s a social experience. There are quilting guilds, and some people thrive on the social aspects of quilting as they’re working. I’m much more of a private person.”

After all these years in the fine arts, Warden has learned how to be able to shrug off criticisms, and has nurtured enough confidence throughout the decades to look disapproval in the eye – and even wink at it; she’s at a point in her life when she believes in what she does, and nothing is going to deter her from doing it:

“I don’t mind putting myself out there in a vulnerable way anymore. With quilting, I know that I’m in the right place right now. It’s exciting. Each piece is different. Each day is different.”

Barbara Warden’s textile art will be on the display for the months of September and October at The Frame Shop and Gallery, 325 Main Street, Hamilton, MT. Phone: 363-6684.

For more information, visit www.firetalkquilts.com.