[sassieakadeb]

Here’s mine!

Deb Berkebile

Artist’s Statement

I am an artist with an extensive background in textiles and quilt making.  Recently, I have been exploring surface design and multi-media artwork

I am a naturalist and environmentalist at heart. My current body of work explores satellite imagery and creating ‘false-color’ artistic depictions of remote sensed satellite images (Geographical Information Systems).  I have seven quilts in my “Earth in Three Bands: R, G, B” Series: The Painted Desert, Eye of Sahara, The Great Salt Desert, Susitna Glacier, The Grand Canyon, Galileo Inspiration and the latest one The Great Lakes. The vivid colors and their outstanding variations are what first drew me to these representations. I also use other remote sensed imagery taken from our National Parks for my art. My first quilt in this series was inspired by a thermal image of an eruption of the Old Faithful geyser taken in Yellowstone National Park.

I am also interested in political activism. I am preparing a series of works to be considered for a juried show about civil rights. My pieces feature quilts celebrating the contributions of Martin Luther King/Rosa Parks, Sitting Bull and the Suffragettes.

I create many of the fabrics I use in my design process. I use surface design techniques, hand-dyeing and painted fabric, and digital manipulation of images printed on fabric. I enjoy the challenges of creating original artwork that combine my passions and interests.

My artwork recently has been nationally exhibited in several shows:

Ride Sally Ride will be making her debut in the Herstory traveling exhibit which will start later this year (2017).  Sally Ride accomplished so much in her career. The first American women in space and she showed that there are no limits to what we can achieve as women.

In 2016, I had artwork juried into The Lion King: Cherrywood Fabrics Challenge. My award-winning quilt was one of the finalists selected by Disney Theatrical Group to be exhibited at Minskoff Theatre, New York City, from November, 2017 through January, 2018, plus traveling with the entire collection at many venues around the United States.

My quilts Galileo Inspiration and Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong’s First Step on the Moon are part of the exhibit Fly Me to the Moon. NASA and NASA ISS Communication representative Gordon Andrews invited me to exhibit Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong’s First Step on the Moon for the show Space for Art at NASA Space Center Houston in Houston, Texas. It was on exhibit from January through March, 2017.

My quilt, The Painted Desert, was juried into the prestigious Quilts=Art=Quilts: 35^th QAQ Exhibit at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, New York in 2016.  It also was exhibited at the Denver Quilt Festival in 2014.