SEQUIM — The colorful canvases are textured with baking soda, cornstarch or sand, painted with acrylic and harmonized with weaving from local yarn, loomed with nails on the canvas.
A piece, Emily Carlquist says, “starts with wanting to put texture down on something and see what transpires.”
Then, she says, “I feel it for colors,” and from there it gains complexity and depth.
The Sequim artist’s work is on display this month at Dandelion Botanical Company, 4681 Sequim-Dungeness Way.
Most of the artwork is also for sale.
The April exhibition at Dandelion is Carlquist’s first public show. It will culminate with a celebration and party from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday.
Carlquist said at one point she asked herself, “What is my unique voice to add something to the world of abstract art? And I realized it was fiber art.”
Interspersed with Carlquist’s larger abstracts are a few anomalous pieces and a number of small hanging sculptures, primarily made with kelp. Hung between the larger paintings to provide visual counterpoints, the small sculptures are not labeled.
“They are random kelp weavings that are just for fun,” she said.
Carlquist’s creations are varied and, according to Dandelion proprietor Kachi Cassinelli, deserve a close look.
“I feel like I could spend a lot of time with them,” Cassinelli said. “The colors are so saturated and the textures are so deep. They seem to reflect nature.”
She said the layers on the canvas bring to mind geological history and how the land wears away.
“Even the fabric seems to have layers. Looking side-wise, the layers are like a cliff.”
At the closing party on Saturday, Carlquist will have one painting “warped up to show the process” of her “tapestry-weaving style, with a needle.”
Raised on art
Carlquist said some of her pieces are evocative of Southern Utah, the landscape of her childhood, where she grew up surrounded by fiber artists.
“I was raised around a lot of artists,” Carlquist says. “[At a young age] I learned to sew, crochet and quilt.”
Carlquist learned techniques from other skilled people all her life and said she took as many classes and workshops as possible, including from local weaver Cathy MacGregor.
In college, Carlquist worked and learned with people in Bolivia and the Dominican Republic, among others. In turn, she’s been teaching since high school, where she was a teacher’s assistant in art classes.
Carlquist now teaches at Five Acre School and said she may be giving classes at Dandelion Botanical Company in the future.
“I would love to get to the point where I offer mixed media workshops,” she said.
Carlquist also worked as a hair stylist for 18 years.
“I’ve always joked that it is a fiber art, too.”
Cassinelli welcomes other local artists to come in and talk to her about potentially exhibiting at Dandelion in the future. She requests digital images of the art, via their phone or a website. Open hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday through Monday.
May’s artist will be photographer Donna Tomsula. Cassinelli said her black and white photography from the 1970s “catches strange moments in time.”
Dandelion Botanical Company’s website lists current classes at dandelionbotanical.com.
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Emily Matthiessen is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach her at emily.matthiessen@sequimgazette.com.
Artist Emily Carlquist adjusts one of her abstract pieces featuring weaving on a kelp root with poppies at Dandelion Botanical Company at 4681 Sequim-Dungeness Way, where Carlquist is the featured artist for the month of April. (Emily Matthiessen/Olympic Peninsula News Group)
