Laura Center

Laura Center’s Artist Statement

Mastering more than four decades of weaving and textile restoration skills, Laura’s distinct weavings capture the fresh, honest expression of children’s original art work in this series. Applying her adept weaving skills and incorporating a unique application, through a recent change in technical style, she now uses cotton cloth to create images that easily engage the viewer. The vibrant and fully saturated colors of cotton cloth create a soft and rich texture. These time-intensive textiles are woven on a Navajo loom.

Laura Center’s Biography

Laura grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah majoring in drawing and weaving at the University of Utah while later studying at Haystack Mt. School of Crafts in Maine, Fiberworks – Center for Fiber Arts in Berkeley, CA, and California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA. She wove for well-known fiber artists in her early career as a free-lance fiber artist. After moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1977 she became self-employed as a Navajo rug restorer while studying Southwest Native Weaving. Related experiences in this direction brought her several judging positions in prominent Native American Arts venues in Santa Fe. She has lectured and taught both weaving in general and Navajo weaving specifically. More recently, in 2021, she received ATA’s Award of Excellence for her weaving “Ladybug and My Two Yellow Socks” which showed in Georgia’s “Stories of Nature”. She has also shown her work in ATA’s Small Tapestry shows of 2009, 2019, and 2021. In 2019-2020 she was an Artist-In-Residence with Tourism of Santa Fe demonstrating and showing her work. In 2010 she was featured in the show “Restoration – Creative Work by Textile Conservators and Restorers” at the 516 Arts Gallery in Albuquerque, New Mexico.