Artist Bio

Liz Ives is a textile artist living and working in Central Massachusetts. She has a BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago in textile arts and an MA in history from Villanova University with a focus on material culture. She believes that learning about material culture, the things created and used in daily life, can teach us about the past and inform the present. Textiles are one of the most important "material" items humans use every day in a variety of ways. They serve as a gateway to examine art, culture, and history.  

 

As a textile arts teacher with 25 years of experience in all types of education, from college lectures to private mentorship, Liz believes firmly that anyone can do art if they have a desire to try.  She is currently offering small classes & workshops at New England Botanic Garden in natural dyes, embroidery, bookbinding and other classes.

 

In her own body of work, she focuses on the intersection of time and place as seen through the lens of textiles, with a focus on the natural world and our interactions with it. She uses natural dyes, textile-printing, embroidery, sewing, quilting, and a variety of textile techniques to explore these larger ideas.  Liz’s new series of work that focuses on our place in the natural world in both space and time by obtaining natural colors from specific locations and seasons. These naturally dyed and printed samples are assembled into larger textile works to tell a story of a specific place at a specific point in time.