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Fae Kontje-Gibbs

Medium: Quilt Design
Location: Vineyard Haven, MA

Martha’s Vineyard has been my home since 1973. In my twenties I commuted to the Cape Cod Conservatory of Music and Art, Mass Art, and The Boston School of the Museum of Fine Arts to study printmaking. I got my bachelor’s degree in art and writing through Goddard College’s Adult Degree Program while living and traveling on a wooden sailboat.

Back on the Island, I bought a house and a Rembrandt etching press, which I put it in my kitchen. From there I began teaching art classes until I expanded into my own studio and into the community, eventually traveling to Russia to teach at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. I established the printmaking studio for Featherstone Center for the Arts, in Oak Bluffs, where I taught monotype and relief printmaking. In 1996 I was honored with the Creative Living Award by the Endowment for Martha’s Vineyard.

My work has been used by Houghton Mifflin for book covers and pamphlets. I have been illustrating Ali Berlow’s, “Cook’s Notebook”, for edible Vineyard Magazine since it launched in 2009. My first self-published book is The Little Beastie, a fable for all ages. I have shown at galleries on Martha’s Vineyard and in New Jersey, New Hampshire, Kansas and Cambridge, MA.

As mother, grandmother, yogini and acupuncturist, my art is a synthesis of all of my experiences. I find that the heart-felt sharing of others inspires me to do the same.

Elsewhere:
https://www.flickr.com/people/78519441@N02/
faellen@gmail.com

Work on Consenses

Finding Home

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Finding Home

This quilt is a song and the story of my life. It is about sails and water and movement and wind and finding home. In Charleston SC circa ’78/’79, I found out, just as spring was emerging, that I was pregnant. I was sailing around the globe with my then husband Geoffrey. I immediately quit pot, booze, and cigarettes, all at once. Two years later, in Feb. of ’81, my marriage exploded. My baby girl, Reade, was only 16 months old. I lost my boat “Saorsa,” and my life as a sailor. It took me a while to settle, but that was the beginning of me letting go of my wanderings. I lost my life as a sailor, but I found home holding my daughter in my arms.” Emotionally, listening to the music I felt the tumbling wave/wind like nature of paisley and the interconnectedness of everything. Images of blue, water, waves and the musical staff ran through my head. Though I am an artist of many mediums, I wanted to create a translucent fabric, almost like a sail, to express this song ‘cause I wanted my piece to flow and move like the melody and I needed to sew the pieces together like I imagined the music might have been pieced together. Everything in this quilt was something else before. The black was my husband’s trousers, the yellow was found at the thrift shop, the stripes are from an old shirt, there is my grandmothers bed sheet, fabric I used to make my daughter’s overalls, and drawings my daughter, granddaughter and goddaughter & god son made. This quilt is like the pieced together parts of my life, beautiful in its wholeness and translucency, seamy side and all.

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