Idaho Mountain Express: A colorful turn

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

A colorful turn

Hues from nature inspire fiber artist Janet Starr

By KAREN LINDELL
Express Staff Writer

“I’m all about color,” says artist Janet Starr, whose “Color Study in Yellow, Orange, Gray & Red/Orange” and other works will be on display in “Abstract Landscapes” at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Hailey. Courtesy photo

    “Turn Around More” is good advice for nature walkers who are always charging ahead. It’s also the title of a piece of fiber wall art by Janet Starr, whose works will be on display at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Hailey from Thursday, Sept. 11, through Nov. 13.
   Starr, a 20-year resident of Indian Creek, north of Hailey, creates abstract quilt pieces using hand-dyed cloth layered with colors, patterns and designs.
   Starr said she’s “all about color,” and is often inspired by hues in nature: rocks, leaves, berries, branches, rivers … and mountain skies. On a late January day she was walking her dog, Perkins, as they watched the sunset, and when she turned around to check on him, she saw the snow-covered mountains in the east “lit up with several shades of orange, and a storm was moving in so the sky was gray.” She went home immediately and created a piece called “Turn Around More.”
   Her Sun Valley Center for the Arts solo exhibit, titled “Abstract Landscapes,” is part of the center’s fall Big Idea project, themed “Forests, Foraging and Fires.” Big Idea projects explore a topic via various media (visual art, film, theater), discussions and other activities.
   “Because I work from nature—the colors—it naturally evokes the feel of the outdoors even though the piece itself is abstract,” Starr said.
   She begins with large bolts of white fabric, then dyes them. Starr got interested in this form of art 10 years ago after finding a container of orange Rit dye in a junk drawer. When she looked online for T-shirt-dying instructions, she discovered “surface design”—layering color, texture and image on white fabric.
   “Over the next several years, she said, “I dyed, silk-screened, discharged, bleached, foiled, rolled, clamped, stamped, resisted and experimented on hundreds of yards of fabric.”
   And she’s never looked back—unless she’s on a nature walk.

‘Abstract Landscapes’
WHAT: Exhibit of fiber wall artwork by Janet Starr.
WHERE: Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Hailey, 314 Second Ave. S.
WHEN: On display from Thursday, Sept. 11, through Nov. 13, 2 to 5 p.m. Thursdays and by appointment, with an opening reception at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
COST: Free admission.
DETAILS: 726-9491, www.sunvalleycenter.org or www.janetstarr.com.

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