Of Color And Cloth

Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: April 2025

“I always knew I wanted to go into art,” says Joan Marsden. “I didn’t know what kind. But I knew it would be art.”

With her mom, a teacher and clothing-creator, and her dad, a creator of constructions, Joan was born into a perfect innovation storm. Her two- and three-dimensional world set the stage for just about any vocation she chose.

While she considers herself a fiber artist these days, Joan spent her life passionately exploring everything from fine art to craft: design, commercial/graphic arts (she worked for Fisher-Price R & D department doing package design for toys), cast paper, hammered wire ornaments, hand-crafted greeting cards, silk-painting, watercolor, fiber-dyeing, stain-glass, texture-exploration with batiks and alpaca in fabric landscapes . . . the list goes on and on. Let’s just say, there’s hardly any art form untouched by Joan’s talented hands.

Joan’s first pro gig, commercial art, was in her hometown, Buffalo, New York. She says, “In the 1990s, after 20 years of ad agency composition, computers took over work I’d been doing by hand. I went back to college, got both B.S. and M.S. degrees in art education, and taught art in a small private school for 8 years: Pre-K/age 4 through grade 8.”

Now, with her kids grown and everyone happily ensconced, it’s time for Joan to dig further into art exploration. This time she savors it just for herself. She says, “I still have to justify buying new materials, so I sell a few works of art to keep a balance.”

And you can find those beautiful balancers at Dogwood Crafters in Dillsboro (a member of Cashiers Chamber). View her fabric landscapes (greeting cards and wall pieces), each fabricated with l’assemblage of color and cloth, rich in hue and texture – true to the Blue Ridge seasonal-wow.

She adds, “My wall hangings and mountain landscapes are machine stitched, using mostly batik fabrics. I love the color variations in batiks, and they are easier to work with because they are a tighter weave than regular fabric so they don’t ravel. I use alpaca locks for the mist in the mountains. I love playing with the colors and visual textures in the fabrics and choosing which fabrics to put together. More distant mountains are lighter in color and less distinct, the closer mountains get brighter colors.”

For more information, contact Joan at Ravenarts@yahoo.com.