Artist Pat Pauly to teach fabric printing workshop

Artist Pat Pauly, of Rochester, is a frequent instructor at Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, often teaching workshops on printing fabrics. It’s a technique that she uses almost exclusively in her own pieces.

For Quilters’ Weekend at the Schweinfurth, which runs Oct. 23-27, 2019, and includes the opening of the annual Quilts=Art=Quilts exhibition, Pauly will be teaching a newly developed class, On Your Mark – Print! In the class, students will take a favorite mark and use that motif in various print methods, including direct dyeing, dye painting, and wet and dry layering print techniques.

“We’ll learn the basics of printing, like those from other classes I teach, but in this class we’ll take extra care to develop marks that dominate the design,” Pauly said. “We’ll develop scale and repetition with these marks, and allow that design element to take over the impact of the fabric’s print.

“It’s great fun to see how the marks emerge, get stronger, and different,” she continued. “All of a sudden, the room is filled with wonderful and diverse images!”

Pauly’s college professors pegged her as a painter, but she didn’t find her medium until she experimented with silkscreening prints on fabric. She loved the design she made so much that she turned it into her first quilt, which was juried into Quilt National 1983, a prestigious U.S. quilt show. She still has that quilt.

“My abstract constructions take forms that resemble natural shapes,” Pauly said. “I use fiber and cloth to create large works that resemble paintings. Because I use my own printed fabric, the work takes on a quality that at times convinces others that it is a painting.”

Take, for instance, her piece “Blue Garden,” which is included in Quilts=Art=Quilts 2019. “The work is of the garden in a winter landscape, with seeds taking flight, the wind doing its work to spread them,” she said. “I love the perspective of being at ground level to see the landscape.”

Pauly created it in response to a quilt show’s call for entries that celebrate its sapphire year. “I responded by pulling together fabrics that were the sapphire colors – blues, reds, yellows,” she said. “With great bravado, I entered it and it was declined.”

However, Pauly finds the pass freeing. “I can now bring (the piece) with me when I teach and enter it where others can see it,” she explained. Including Quilt=Art=Quilts 2019.

About the workshop
What: On Your Mark – Print!
Where: Schweinfurth Art Center, 205 Genesee St., Auburn
When: 9am to 4pm Wednesday, Oct. 23, to Saturday, Oct. 26, 2019
Who: For all levels of artists
Instructor: Pat Pauly
Cost: $520 for Schweinfurth members, $530 for nonmembers