Alma Lesch: A Life in Fabric
the exhibition runs through March '06 at Schneider Hall on the campus of the University of Louisville in Kentucky, usa.

Mother and Child, pictured here, is on loan from the Evansville Museum of Art and Science, Evansville, IN.

This full length textile portrait, from the early group of Lesch's signature 'portraits' using vintage clothing w/embellished surface areas and densely embroidered borders, reveals hundreds of buttons on the child's dress giving the textured illusion of an Amish quilt surface delicately puckered by thousands of close hand quilted stitches evident in their 19th century textiles.... again, the linen background fuses the palette into a painterly sensibility not seen in many other artists' textile collages of the 1960s-70s when Alma Lesch developed this form we now call Portraits.

The Alma Lesch: A Life in Fabric has opened in Louisville's Covi Gallery in the Hite Art Institute galleries on the U of L campus.

 
 

 
 

 
 

ginkgo yellows on front lawn; laden with plump nuts this season, yellow mums last late into the autumn

Koi ready for winter

Posted by Picasa

forcythia bush, autumn 05

Posted by Picasa

Alma Wallace Lesch database

Felted wall piece, Marilyn Rose Swan of Lexington, KY: 2005 Alma Wallace Lesch Memorial Award in textiles

Posted by Picasa

2005 Award winning textile artist: Marilyn Swan; detail, felted hanging.

Posted by Picasa

"Sallie", 1996, fabric portrait, Alma Lesch  

signature detail of "Sallie", 1996, Alma Lesch 

quilts pieced by Alma 

detail of a Kentucky State Fair banner entered in the 1960s by Alma Wallace Lesch 

Come visit my store on CafePress!

fiber, humans using the natural interlocking of threads
...one of the core concepts of civilization...then along came politics and division in the world

<< Previous | Next>>

http://www.kystatefair.org/competitions/winners/competitive_dept_results/finearts_crafts/Fine%20Arts%20and%20Crafts%20Fair%20Results%20for%20Web.html

"We face a human being when we approach an Alma Lesch portrait."
June 15, 1999 American Craft

Photo Gallery

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Louisville. KY 

Koi 

redbud tree at peak bloom 

the pool 

Koi, eating again after long winter under ice 

bluebells 

closeup 

jonquil, daffodill season 

north side of Alma's 

redbud tree blooming April 2005 

March 14, 2005 snow and sunrise 

visitors new to this page are invited to read the comments by local residents and visitors to an exhibition of the fabric portraits and textile collages, embroidery work and wall hangings of Alma Wallace Lesch, who lived in Bullitt County, Kentucky...

the exhibition at the Ridgway Memorial Library ran from Sept 20 - Oct 16, 1982

a major retrospective of the artist's work is being planned for 2006 through the University of Louisville


links are provided within this blog to further your own research of the innovative textile artist known for her signature FABRIC COLLAGE PORTRAIT technique