Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

Eco Art in Textiles: Liz Burow’s Landscape-Inspired Creations

Prairie Scene- Golden Perspective (01)
Dimensions: 9”x17”
Materials: Handmade wool felt, industrial felt, upholstery thread, machine sewn

I can’t think of a more perfect time of year to feature the landscape fabric and quilt artist Liz Burow than at this moment when summer is abruptly shifting and transforming itself into fall. Just like the cycle of the four seasons, Burow’s textiles capture an in-between, unfastened environment of transition and movement.

Prospect Park (Green)Topo Quilt
Dimensions: 22”x40”
Materials: Wool and Polyester felt, batting, upholstery thread, machine sewn

Eco Chick: Your artist statement describes how the “Topo-Quilts and Ivy Walls transform our wild landscape into interior décor.” What does that domesticating process mean to you? It seems like there are several steps of abstraction taking place since your textiles render a cartographic and architectural impression of nature (maps, blueprints, and urban plans) rather than a direct visualization of place.
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(Re)Fashioning Fiber Exhibit on NOW at Greenspaces, NYC

If you can’t make it to NYC, check out my visual tour of the (Re)Fashioning Fiber Exhibit

Abigail Doan curated the (Re) Fashioning Fiber exhibit (now through August 13th at Greenspaces in Manhattan) because she thought that among eco fashion and sustainable style showcases, there wasn’t enough focus on the basics- the very fibers that make up our clothes, and whose creation has a significant environmental impact.

Before clothes are sewn, the fibers are grown (cotton, hemp), manufactured (polyester, Tencel) or raised (silk, wool). And depending on the textile, they are dyed or processed and then knit, woven, or manufactured. All of this happens before it even happens into the hands of a garment worker, who cuts, sews, and creates a piece of clothing for us (hopefully at a fair wage).

Xing-Zhen Chung-Hilyard/Eko-Lab crocheted mixed media piece

By looking more closely at the fibers themselves, the artists deconstructed them in such a way as to get to the roots of what they were truly made of (a floor installation reminded one of nothing more than an unwinding ball of yarn seen from ants’-eye-view). From recycled yarns and reused ‘waste’ textiles to upcycled hoola hoops and vintage jewels and hemp, creative reuse was exemplified in each of the pieces.
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