Threaded

This is an original painting, 24"x36" acrylic and fabric on 1.5" deep cradled panel. The sides of this piece are wood that's been sanded and finished, so the piece can be hung without a frame. The painting is protected with a semi-gloss varnish.

“Threaded” was inspired by some yards of fabric I bought in Tokyo years ago, at the discount table of a large fabric store. It was printed with a mix of asanoha and hexagon patterning in neon orange and metallic gold ink. I honestly thought it was pretty ugly (thus why it was on the discount table), but it was inexpensive and I thought it would make a good background that I could cover up. Once I began using pieces of it in paintings, I realized how much the pattern and color lent to my process. “Threaded” is made with the last piece of that textile, which I’ll probably never find again. I wanted to honor the feel of that fabric in this painting, and I let it peek through in several places. The winding brush stroke through the piece reminds me of the twists and turns in the creative path.

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Heather Robinson studied environmental design and architecture at Texas A&M University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which gave her a passion for structure and a fascination with how people choose to decorate the spaces and things around them. She has an indiscriminate love of pattern and color, adores the handmade and the accidental, and has a great fondness for the imperfect. Her work focuses on the interplay of order and spontaneity, and has been collected throughout the US and internationally.

Since 2007, she has been painting in her studio in San Francisco. She's a professionally-trained baker and enjoys traveling (despite the last couple of years), studying foreign languages, and collecting vintage (ie loud) neckties.