Deborah Snider

Deborah
K
Snider
Juried Artist Member (JAM)
Location

Silver City, NM
United States

Region
Artist Statement
Forty years ago, I read Gaston Bachelard’s “The Poetics of Space,” which changed my approach to art: “The surest sign of wonder is exaggeration. And since the inhabitant of a shell can amaze us, the imagination will soon make amazing creatures…issue from the shell.” I discovered that I could use realistic images and combine them in surreal ways, contriving new relationships, contexts, and narratives.

My priorities are two-fold: To create beauty and meaning. I love to tell stories about women, social justice, and nature. My choices are informed by my spiritual alignment with Buddhism and Celtic and Native American nature-based paths. I often employ humor in my compositions to hook the viewer into considering a deeper message.

I use fussy-cut existing images from disparate fabrics in some art quilts; in others, I start from hand-drawn cartoons to build my images from scratch. I work with a domestic sewing machine when drawing with free-motion quilting, and handwork when embellishing.