|
|
|
Tapestry Topics Online
A Quarterly Review of Tapestry Art Today
|
|
page 7
Fall 2005, Vol 31 No 3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Elements: Mixed Media Show
by Courtney Ann Shaw, Ph.D.
– TT p.13-14 |
|
|
|
I was introduced to the work of Ulrika Leander while compiling my dissertation, The Rise of the Artist/Weaver: Tapestry weaving in the United States from 1930-1990 published by the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1992. At the time of my research, she was weaving commissions, using a 14’ custom tapestry loom. The thesis documents that Leander wove her first tapestry when she was 13 and lists her extensive course work in her native country, Sweden. Trained to be a textile consultant, she became the head of the textile department at Lund University until she moved to the United States in 1980. . .
Now she lives on Maryland’s “Eastern Shore” near the town of Easton, in Bellevue, a very quaint area, with beautiful old churches, right next to the Tred Avon River . . . The house they found was built in 1896. It had been partially refurbished to include an antique and craft store which subsequently become Contemporary Tapestry Weaving/Studio & Gallery.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ulrika Leander, Opening night at CTW Studio & Gallery on June 11, 2005.
|
|
|
|
The studio and gallery are a wonderful open space (2000 sq.ft.), with a huge vertical loom, built by an engineer from Oak Ridge in 1986. Since 2001, she and her husband have created a yearly show not only of tapestry but sculpture and mixed media as well. Exhibiting artists might be local, national, or international. “Elements” is Ulrika’s fourth show. One of her other shows displayed her collection of Norwegian and Swedish textiles from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. . .
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ulrika Leander, High Meadow, 53" x 106"
|
|
|
|
Ulrika’s tapestries vary from realistic to abstract depending on whether the work is for commission or speculative and personal. While flexible in style, her work continues to be quite large. “Ingrid and Gey,” . . . the result of this poignant story [about finding information about her biological family] is a very colorful, very large and well designed abstract tapestry . . .
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ulrika Leander, Ingrid and Gey, 66" x 144"
|
|
|
|
“Aniara” is created in a much finer weave. It is based on the famous Swedish poem of the same name written by Harry Martinsson in the 1940s about the “unbelievable” idea of men going into outer space. With a mythical bird in the foreground, a nude woman representing a vulnerable human being in the facing toward a new world. Warp threads have been divided to weave the female in a finer sett than the background.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ulrika Leander, Aniara, 84" x 51"
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
o f
|
|
t h e
|
|
|
|
N e w s l e t t e r
|
|
|
A m e r i c a n
|
|
T a p e s t r y
|
|
A l l i a n c e
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
