About the artist
Nancy Shaw Cramer has returned to her studio to develop a singular contemporary collection, working with new materials and techniques, to create mixed media surface designs and tapestries. She was the owner-director of the Shaw Cramer Gallery of contemporary fine crafts + paintings on Martha’s Vineyard for twenty years, preceded by a career of nationally exhibited tapestries.
Her handwoven tapestries were exhibited at: the Textile Museum in Washington DC; American Craft Museum, NY; Newark Museum, NJ; the Philadelphia and Baltimore craft shows in addition to galleries and other venues. She taught workshops at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and was an artist in residence at the American Craft Museum.
Now she re-emerges with a collection of beaded surface designs, which have recently inspired a new design style of tapestries and a new pieced silk series.
Artists Statement
After a life that included tapestry weaving, interior design, and being the owner-director of a gallery, I was looking for something different to create – something less highly planned, more about letting the materials inspire fresh new directions. I experimented with collage, punched holes, asymmetrical lines, embellishments and then suddenly one day I knew what I wanted to do. Immediately I cut my paper to size, splashed it with color and began.
All of the surface design series have similar elements and techniques. The printmaking paper is embossed, splashed, sprayed or rolled with dyes or luminous paints. The glass beads are designed on the prepared paper in an expressionistic style. They are sewn on individually, in small units, in mounds, threaded on cable wires and glued on in grids. Finished images are layered on screen, floated, framed or mounted on painted box panels.
These materials and techniques continue to inspire new directions and designs, ever moving forward, evolving.
