AMY PUTANSU •   WAYNESVILLE, NC

"The spark for almost every textile I create stems from questions pertinent to my connection with the flux between land and sea. Questions of impermanence and purpose are part of the human predicament, and I balance this uncertainty by beginning each weaving project from a place of experiential understanding. Using a rare hand weaving technique called ondulé, I maneuver threads out of the strict grid and into wave-like patterns and lines. The resulting contemplative fields of woven work uphold a minimalist aesthetic, with high regard for restraint. Physically, the process of moving with the loom mimics the movement of the tides. Aesthetically, ondulé weaving enables me to capture the fluidity and textures in the visual vocabulary I amassed during my solitary childhood roaming the shores and islands along the North Atlantic. Undulating waves of the ocean, tidal patterns in the sand, and especially the distant horizon."

Amy Putansu has been producing handmade textiles for over 20 years. Thread is her mark-making tool and dyes are her colorant in the fine and wearable textile art she makes by hand. Her current area of focus is the rare weaving technique of ondulé, with which she creates wall pieces using dyed fibers with textile paints and other methods for achieving abstract imagery on cloth. Amy has contributed to the Schiffer publication “Ondulé Textiles: Weaving with a Fan Reed” (by Norma Smayda and Gretchen White). Amy’s textiles are in permanent museum collections in the US and China, and notable private collections across the United States. She is presently full time faculty at a college in western North Carolina in the department of professional craft.

 

ASSOCIATED EXHIBITIONS

Blue Spiral 1 at COHAB.SPACE
October 5 - November 5, 2023
MAIN GALLERY

Artists: Bobbi Allen, Vicki Essig, Ed Nash, Amy Putansu, Deborah Squier, and Scott Upton

May 5 - June 28, 2023
TOPO
MAIN GALLERY
May 6 - June 22, 2022
land _ sea _ sky SCAPES_ new work by Amy Putansu
SMALL FORMAT GALLERY
November 5 - December 29, 2021
Weave. Knit. Stitch.
LOWER LEVEL GALLERY
July 2 - August 27, 2021

MEDIA

AMY PUTANSU

August 18, 2022
August 17, 2022
August 17, 2022