

Region:
Ontario
Date(s):
1941-2001
Biography
Ellen Adams was a Canadian fibre artist and quilter who lived in Wellington County. Her fibre art is built on the traditions and techniques of quilt-making, silk painting, fabric printing, and...
Ellen Adams was a Canadian fibre artist and quilter who lived in Wellington County. Her fibre art is built on the traditions and techniques of quilt-making, silk painting, fabric printing, and stitchery. It is characterized by the visual depth of her fabric choices, and was influenced by her travels to Japan and in Art-Deco-style elevator door friezes. Adams created a technique she called the “shattered image” demonstrated in a book by Connie Mantini entitled Shatter and Sew. In an article contributed to Threads magazine, Adams described how to divide up and shuffle together several repeats of a printed-fabric design in order to obtain an easily manipulated, and sometimes surprisingly different, larger version.