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Biography
Barbie Swanson is a fiber
artist, teacher, designer and inventor. She creates specialty
hand-dyed & painted fabrics and yarns. She has developed techniques
for stress free-tool free paper piecing and of chain paper piecing.
She has also designed a technique and quilt style she named “Florida
appliqué”. She devises new fabric designs through her exploration
and development of individual and unique techniques. Any fiber is
welcome in her creations. Barbie will always tell you that there
are two criteria for making quilts & fiber sculpture: having a
meaning or message and having a highlighted effect that invites you
to look closely at it, as well as seeing the impact from afar.
Barbie has won many awards for her
quilts and dolls. Several of her patterns have been published in
magazines. She exhibited some of her quilt pieces at the ARTSERVE
Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, Stretching Art and Tradition exhibit
annually in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, The Orchid Society in Palm
Beach County, Florida, Columbia County Library in north Florida,
Quilts at the Crossroads in Flint, Michigan, Visions “Fiber
of Coronado” special exhibit and various local & national shows.
Her quilt, “Lurking-We Should Have Known” was chosen to and
traveled for 3 years around the world with the “America
From the Heart” exhibit
sponsored by Quilts, Inc. This quilt is in the book entitled
America From the Heart which memorialized the sad stories of the
events of 9/11. Her Journal Quilts were on display at the
2003 Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas.
Three of her quilts were displayed in
January & February of 2004 at the "Beyond the Bed" exhibit at the
Pasco Arts Council in Holiday, FL In 2004 & 2005 her quilts were chosen to travel in the Robert
Kaufman Quilt Quest 2005. In September through mid November
had 2 fiber creations on exhibition at the North Florida Art League
2005 Art Show in Lake City, FL where she won the Kash Britton
Memorial Award. She and her pattern Tree of
Life are featured in the September/October 2005 issue of
The Applique Society newsletter.
She teaches and lectures in local,
regional and national venues. As well as teaching standard and
innovative techniques, she is a Sulky Certified Educator. She enjoys hand and machine appliqué of
any kind and in 1999, established the first chapter of The Appliqué
Society, Appliqué Artists of Southeast Florida. In addition, she has
served and officiated on various quilt guild & show boards. She owns
Fabric Art Shop, an online and traveling specialty shop and holds
classes and retreats at her studio in Lake City, FL. Barbie is also
the inventor of the Easy Glide® tools for industrial machines ,
co-designer of the Easy Glide® Creator Free Motion Machine and
distributes these as well as other products to quilting shops and
consumers.
The motto for
Barbie's students is "YES, I CAN!" It is what she believes in
and anyone working in class or on individual projects with her realizes
that they CAN and DO. Her goal for everyone is to move him or her to
create something that has meaning and gives pleasure. Most everything
creative is playtime to Barbie and her approach encourages others to
step cheerfully out of their box. Thus “MAY
YOU BE MOVED TO CREATE!”
is her wish for all.
http://fabricartshop.com (home page)
barbie@fabricartshop.com
Barbie Swanson
May You Be Moved to Create!
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