Villagers Geisel and Gray fuse media in new exhibition
- Published: September 12, 2024
By El Mele
Fiber artist Pam Geisel and glass artist Sara Gray — often fused in their local art show coordination over the past two decades — have come together to create an exhibition entitled “Fused: Fiber and Glass” at Village Artisans.
The exhibition opens Friday, Sept. 13, with a reception from 6–8 p.m., and will be on display through Nov. 5.
Geisel and Gray told the News in a recent interview that their journey began together at the Nature Arts and Crafts Show, a longtime event previously held annually at the Vernet Ecological Center the weekend before Thanksgiving. Geisel, who, at the time, sat on the board of Glen Helen with her husband, coordinated the event with Gray’s mother, Susan Gray Miller. Gray met Geisel by helping with the silent auction. From 2006–2011, Geisel and Gray joined forces to coordinate the show every year, and in 2006, both decided to start selling their art at the show, with Gray selling her photography and Geisel her quilts. They had adjacent booths in order to cover each other if one had to leave to fulfill her duties.
“Susan was one of the first people who bought something from me,” Geisel said.
Since then, in addition to creating art for one another, the two have continued to work together coordinating various local art events, including the former Art & Soul: A YS Art Fair and YS Artist Studio Tour, as well as the YS Arts Council Open Studios, and the annual Art On the Lawn event at Mills Lawn. This year, the two aided in the effort to find a new location for Art on the Lawn — the land near the Antioch College campus where a future Senior Center facility will be built — while asbestos abatement was underway at Mills Lawn. The two are currently training a new artist to coordinate the event.
Despite fiber and glass being very different artistic media, the two artists said the media share the ability to be fused together: Fibers are fused by ironing an adhesive to one fabric and then melding it onto another piece of fabric, while glass is fused by firing compatible sheets of glasses together, either in a kiln or a mold, depending on the intended end product, with firing often taking place over a series of days.
“Being able to fuse fabric was a game changer for me,” Geisel said. “With traditional quilts, you are typically working with squares, rectangles or triangles, because you have to fit them together — which is actually very similar to stained glass. With fusing, suddenly I’m not limited to the basic shapes found in traditional quilt blocks. The fabric doesn’t have to be pieced together with seams; it can be placed randomly. I can do odd shapes, and it gives it more stability.”
Gray said her experience with fusing glass has been similar to Geisel’s.
“Quilt patterns are very common in glass fusing,” she said. “You’re taking pieces of glass you’ve cut like a quilt and you’re putting it on a back piece so it fuses to become one piece. You can also fuse shapes together; you’re not limiting yourself. It can also be functional, as opposed to most stained glasses in windows. Fused glass has changed my love for working with glass. It’s different from the concept of always hanging in a window.”
“Or lying on a bed,” Geisel added, referring to quilts.
Geisel and Gray’s exhibition will feature 30–40 pieces based on one another’s art, with a rainbow and black theme. As Gray stated in a press release about the upcoming event: “With both glass and fabric, you have really vibrant colors, but you can’t really mix colors like you can with paint. Instead, it depends on what colors are next to each other and layering colors on top of each other.”
“And adding black really makes colors pop,” Geisel explained.
When asked what their favorite pieces were, Geisel chose a rainbow piano keyboard. When Gray originally shared photos of pieces she made for the exhibit, Geisel was immediately drawn to Gray’s keyboards with rainbow colors.
“I knew immediately that I also wanted to make a keyboard using hand-dyed fabric in the colors of the rainbow.” Geisel says. “I love hers, I love mine, and I just think it’s a pretty genius interpretation of a piano keyboard.”
Gray’s favorite piece is based on Geisel’s “Chasing Geese” art quilt.
“Throughout creating the piece, I knew what Pam’s looked like, so I had an end goal in mind. The exciting part for me was knowing I was going to have something just like Pam’s, but in a whole different medium. I would even send Pam pictures of the piece throughout the process. I like all my work, but to mirror someone else’s work in a different medium was a new experience for me.”
She added: “The whole exhibition really pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me think larger, because I had to consider the space we were filling.”
Geisel, currently the marketing manager for the Senior Center, has a background in graphic design, having taught it and previously worked for the Yellow Springs News doing layout editing.
“A lot of people say my quilts have a little graphic quality to them, which makes sense, as I had the color theory and design principles from my graphic design background,” she said.
However, she did not start out her journey knowing how to use a sewing machine.
“Honestly, I took shop class in junior high so I didn’t have to learn how to sew,” she said.
After taking a hand-quilting class with a friend at the Daisy Barrel in Fairborn, Geisel taught herself how to use a sewing machine through YouTube videos and workshops. After 10 years of quilting, she then took a fusing workshop with a friend, and has been fusing ever since 2010.
Gray, who originally began selling her photography at the Nature Arts & Crafts Show, joined Village Artisans in 2006 with her stained glass pieces before being introduced to fused glass around 2012. She previously taught stained glass-making at the Springfield Museum of Art, but has since transitioned to teaching fused glass and has transitioned her studio space to entirely fused glass.
All the pieces in “Fused: Fiber and Glass” will be up for sale, with 10% of sales supporting Village Artisans, and buyers will be able to take the pieces home immediately after they’re purchased. Items will also be listed for sale on Geisel’s website, pamgeiselartquilts.weebly.com, and Gray’s Facebook page, facebook.com/reflectingwhispers.
Regular gallery hours for Village Artisans are Monday–Thursday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.; Friday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; and Sunday, noon–5 p.m.
*The author is a student at Antioch College and a freelance reporter for the News.
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