Cosmic Illusions

lofty quilts and high art by Salli McQuaid

 

"I am expressing a new reality," she said. "It doesn't exist in life as we know it on this planet, although it may exist in other areas of our vast universe...."Maybe I'm predicting the future [inter-planetary travel]," she said. "Just think. My work could be like Brave New World, only in fabric." In contemporary art terminology, the work often engages the 21st century notion of paralax, which presents images and ideas from multiple perspectives.

McQuaid holds a Master's Degree in Art from San Jose University and a black belt in Kuk Sool Won. She began making art as a toddler and attended University of Oregon (Eugene) art classes with her father at age 7. Throughout grade school and high school she continued to make art and work with textiles.

Salli McQuaid's art resides in national and international  collections. In the five years she has made fine art quilts, they have been consistently selected for exhibitions, publication, and even aired on TV. The current work Cosmic Illusions is, like past art in other media, carefully crafted and finished ready to hang. A fine art quilt is displayed just like any other piece of two-dimensional art, but tends to be warmer because of its textures, textiles, and physical depth.

Due to the quilt genre of which the textile artworks are an extension, they will instantly acquire an historical (Salli likes to say "hysterical") value that can be passed on to future generations.

Here, you can see textile artwork that Salli McQuaid creates, or -- discretely, by contacting the artist by email (artistwriter@oplink.net ) -- acquire your own piece. (Please note: if a quilt is placed for sale in an exhibition, the quilt will never be sold at a lower price.)

Through her Artist's Statements, you can learn about the artwork -- its construction, influences, conflicts, and/or resolutions, first-hand.

McQuaid shares practical information in "Salli's Secrets". This page will share techniques to  help make your ideas work, or to make creating quilt art, easier. If you have an idea, please submit it. Credit will be given.

Salli does not measure the value of her work in time spent, but in love: love of the materials, the process, and the theme she expresses. She spends untold hours making each Cosmic Illusion,  considering the work finished only when it tells her it is done. "You can't hurry a quilt," she said.

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Laughing Dragon Gallery has been up since 1999. Since McQuaid has made art in various media for over five decades, creativity is now her first nature.

McQuaid is both experienced and educated in creating art, therefore her neo-illusionary art  quilts reflect in an informed manner mainstream pictorial art concerns, including paralax.

Return to this site to follow the direction of the work.