Patricia Dunn

Patricia Dunn’s Artist Statement

The expressions of my work through the craft of weaving and dyeing threads have evolved in two directions: tapestry and sculpture. From the beginning place and ideas have inspired.  Place has developed since my early work in tapestry like the Colorado Canyon series and continued in the Zacatecas series. It also found its expression in sculpture with the Silent Voices. On the Mountain series and continues today. Ideas, like quincunx, gratitude, silhouette (Ana Mendieta), rotating earth, nonconformity, that we are stardust, and masculine and feminine archetypes, have inspired me to creatively explore interpretation in both mediums. For many years my home was in the city of Zacatecas, Mexico. My morning walks, accompanied by my dog, Mina, carried me a short distance to the edge of the city, across a highway onto Cerro del Grillo (Mountain of Crickets). It is high altitude, semi-arid terrain with rocks, outcroppings, bushes, cactus, eucalyptus trees, various grasses and flowering plants. The sky is a profound presence. I carried a pocket camera and took dated snapshots of intimate, near and far places that whispered, spoke, or shouted to me. Later a snapshot carried me into a memory of being there. Selecting images, editing them, doing blind contour drawings of them, and then to the actual abstract designing of tapestry, choosing and dyeing colors and a drawing on a scaled grid that will be my weaving guide. Place of meeting between Earth and Sky no. 3, no. 4 was inspired by the presence of eucalyptus trees, sky, and light on that mountain.

In 2020 I left Zacatecas, alone. My husband died there. Here in Las Cruces, NM when I was finally settled enough to go to the loom, I had a project ready to go. The planned tapestry Place of Meeting Between Earth and Sky no. 5 no longer resonated. It was not meant to be. Place had lost its inspiration. For two years the act of weaving became a time of grieving my loss and celebrating the man and our time together. The actual labor of weaving helped in so many ways to steady me. I followed that basic design using the already dyed yarn and improvised in a new way and in many ways liberating. Along the way, I realized that the woven threads were about our “us”. I learned that love doesn’t die: Place of meeting. LOVE IS, 2023.

Patricia Dunn’s Biography

Threads! All around — Grandmothers, mother, aunts, friends, neighbors knitting and sewing…a memory of working looms seen on a class field trip to the Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY…later, visits to Navajo and Rio Grande weavers in New Mexico…my husband’s love for Navajo rugs with two in our home…knitting…curiosity about spinning… my parents gift of a spinning wheel… spinning lessons and membership in the Handweavers’ Guild of Boulder, CO, about an hour’s drive from my mountain home. I worked and explored fiber, in part self-taught and taking advantage of many workshops like dyeing, color theory, design, and weaving.  Enchanted by tapestry and at the same time intimidated by the very slow process …not me!  I concentrated on spinning, dyeing, designing, and knitting sweaters. Then with rug weaving, I found a place but…it was with art classes at a nearby community college that suddenly I wanted to ‘paint’ with dyed yarns…weaving with more than one color in a shed…discontinuous weft. Tapestry! Down the road, the third dimension beckoned. The copper wire woven with hand-dyed silk yarn gave me an additional path of interpretation, especially moments on morning walks. The two expressions are an unending road of investigation and creativity.  My tapestries and sculptures have had solo, duo, and collective shows in Denver and other cities in the US and in México: the Museo Zacatecano, Irma Valerio Galerías, ex-Templo San Agustín, and at Centro de las Artes, San Luis Potosí. And since my arrival here in Las Cruces my work has been in various shows. I competed for and was awarded a commission for a Utah 1% Art project for the 2002 Winter Olympics. My tapestries and copper wire and silk yarn sculptures are in private, public, and commercial collections and spaces.

I grew up on a dairy farm in New York State, attended college at SUNY Plattsburgh and the University of Colorado, and married Mark, a potter, photographer, and teacher. We raised our children in the mountains west of Denver, Colorado. In those years we explored, hiked, and camped in New Mexico. As well our love of Mexico took us on many trips there and we finally lived in Zacatecas, MX, from 1998-2020. For reasons of his health, we decided to leave this high-altitude colonial city that we loved. Mark died there in Zacatecas and I came on to our intended destination, Las Cruces, NM where I currently work in my home studio.