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Biography
BARBIE
SWANSON – Lake City, Florida
Barbie Swanson is a
nationally known fiber artist, teacher, designer and inventor. She is a
member of many fiber art organizations including the Surface Design
Association and the North Florida Art League. She invents tools to aid
in design. And she creates specialty hand-dyed and painted fabrics and
yarns which she incorporates into her art pieces. Because of her love
of nature and the way she brings this love into her art, she has won
many awards for her art creations and has been published in several
magazines. She loves to teach, from the very basics to the more
complex, and 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. With patient guidance, that
allows a student to explore, most find that after even one session, that
they can pursue an avenue that lets them grow in a direction that is
beneficial to their needs and desires. In her art classes, she
encourages her students to find their own way and not make copies of her
art samples. Her goal for everyone is to move him or her to create
something that has meaning and gives pleasure.
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 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. Since 2005 she has exhibited and won awards in
the the North Florida Art League Art Shows in Lake City, FL. She
and her pattern Tree of Life was featured in the
September/October 2005 issue of The Appliqué Society
newsletter. Her Florida Panther art creation was shown in the Museum
of Natural History in Gainesville, FL and was one of the pieces
featured in the poster for the Quilting Natural Florida exhibit
in 2008. Then again in 2010 her next Florida Panther fiber art creation
was juried in for the second exhibition of Quilting Natural Florida.
More works of art are always in progress, so look for more to come.
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 Florida 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, which started as an online and traveling specialty
shop and held classes and retreats at her studio. In 2006 she opened her
FABRIC ART SHOP storefront, lovingly known as the purple shop in
Lake City. 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.
http://fabricartshop.com (home page)
 barbie@fabricartshop.com Barbie Swanson
May You Be Moved to Create! |
