FIBER ARTIST
Quilted, 26 x 32
Quilted, 25 x 38
Painted and Quilted, 18 x 24
Quilted, 26 x 32
Upcoming Events
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Art teachers' professional development day. On November 3, I'll be teaching needle felting at an art teachers' professional development day at Five Points Art Center in Torrington, CT. The professional development day is co-sponsored by Five Points and the Connecticut Art Educators' Association.
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The Beauty of the Earth. From September 21, 2026 to January 4, 2027, my work will be included in an invitational group show, The Beauty of the Earth, at the Monastery Gallery of Art,, 393 Tunxis Rd., West Hartford, Ct.
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Echoes in Motion. From December 2026 through January 2027, my work will be included in an invitational group show, Echoes in Motion, at the gallery at the Rockefeller State Park Preserve in Pleasantville, NY.
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Duncaster solo show. For the month of April, 2027, my work will be the subject of a solo exhibition at the Duncaster Gallery, 30 Loeffler Rd., Bloomfield, CT
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Essex solo show. For the month of June 2027, my work will be the subject of a solo exhibition at the Gantner Gallery of the Essex Art Association Essex Ct.
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Canton two-person show. From August 27 to September 25, 2027, my work will be part of a two-person show, with Jennifer Muller, at the Gallery on the Green in Canton, CT.
About Fiber Artist Diane Cadrain
The natural world inspires my work by offering constantly refreshed images of arresting loveliness. Tolstoy said, “Love all creation…love every leaf.” In that spirit, I create images that combine fragility with strength and the evanescent with the eternal. The evanescent and the eternal appear, for example, in the sand ripples left by the departing water at low tide. Those ripples are always different, yet eternally the same.
Some of my fiber artwork is representational, focusing on landscape and encompassing two principal media types. One is an image painted on cotton, embellished with thread painting, backed with batting and backing, and finally quilted. The quilting adds dimensionality to the work. The other medium for my landscapes is needle felting, where a material called wool roving is used as if it were paint. This tactile and textured medium is then enhanced with hand embroidery.
In contrast to these representational works, some of my work is abstract, using watercolors and acrylic markers to display imagined images and colors.
In 2015, I retired from freelance work as a lawyer and writer specializing in employment law topics. Still, I’ve been sewing all my life, starting with hand embroidery and pin weaving, as taught by my grandmother at our home in Hamden, Connecticut. I learned machine sewing in the public schools of Hamden, Connecticut, and with that skill, I constructed my clothes and costumes. As a law student, I learned to knit, and later, in my early 30s, as a new mother, I began quilting. I took up felting in my 50s. My artwork now includes hand-painted fabric, thread painting, felting, knitted embellishments, hand embroidery, and beading.
In 2015, I retired from freelance work as a lawyer and writer specializing in employment law topics. Still, I’ve been sewing all my life, starting with hand embroidery and pin weaving, as taught by my grandmother at our home in Hamden, Connecticut. I learned machine sewing in the public schools of Hamden, Connecticut, and with that skill, I constructed my clothes and costumes. As a law student, I learned to knit, and later, in my early 30s, as a new mother, I began quilting. I took up felting in my 50s. My fiber artwork now includes hand-painted fabric, thread painting, felting, knitted embellishments, hand embroidery, and beading.
