Linda @ LindaKittmer

This week we have a fibre/mixed media artist, who journals and loves photography.  Lately, she's hosting a beautiful paper napkin exchange. When you visit her blog, make sure you visit her galleries, especially the Bead Journal Project Gallery where you can see close-ups of her piece "My Year Unraveled" which is AMAZING!!  It's tempting to think that her fabulous studio (see the tour) makes all her work possible but I think she'd be a very prolific artist in any case.  Introducing...

 My name is Linda Kittmer and I’m from a relatively small town, Georgetown, Ontario, which is about thirty minutes outside of Toronto.

I consider myself a fibre artist foremost, but I also do mixed media work, art journalling and photography, and these various passions sometimes cross over into one another.  Although I have always been interested in art, and took some art classes in high school and university, once I started working as a teacher, my art was put on the back burner while I worked full time and raised my son.

'My Year Unraveled' which is a large piece (18"x24")
done entirely in heavy bead embroidery, which
journals my life during 2012, with each individual piece
representing a month in the year, starting with January
in the centre and spiralling out to the end of the year.

Having grown up in Kitchener, near Mennonite communities, I saw a lot of quilts and always admired them.  Although there are no quilters in my family, in 1999, I decided to teach myself to quilt. I began as a self taught traditional quilter. Although I used some patterns, I quickly discovered that I preferred creating my own unique designs.   Being a prolific quilter, I quickly ran out of beds,  sofas and cribs to cover.   This was also the time when I discovered that the traditional quilt guild was no longer meeting my creative needs.  

'Out of the Blue' deals with the struggle
to escape depression

In the spring of 2006 a friend and I started a fibre art group, ‘The Group of Eight Fibre Artists’ or GOE (rhymes with toe) as we refer to ourselves. In spite of the name, the group currently has ten members who meet monthly, encouraging and inspiring one another.  Our first group show was in January 2011 and we had  many shows and speaking engagements since then.

This is a face on a bag that won 1st place
in an "ugly fabric" challenge

I now use much of my own  hand dyed fabric and I create unique pieces using various surface design techniques such as mono-printing, marbling, rust dyeing, etc.  I have had several of my pieces of art accepted into juried art shows, some specifically ‘fibre art’ shows and others into general art shows which also exhibited other media.

I have a blog, http://lindakittmer.blogspot.ca, where I post about my artistic passions.  Art is relaxing and therapeutic and I make every effort to spend time in my studio each and every day.  For me, art is the answer...no matter what the question!

Linda
http://lindakittmer.blogspot.com