Joan Baxter

Joan Baxter’s Artist Statement

These pieces are examples of a group of work woven between 2018 and 2022, inspired by visits to a remote West Highland sea loch. I spent some of my childhood there and recently revisited after an absence of nearly 50 years. The centerpiece of this group, Still, After Sunset, is a love song to the view from the cottage we lived in, which I now realize has been hard-wired into my brain since childhood. This cycle of work attempts to capture the quiet joy of rediscovering places and things that I thought I had lost and forgotten. Through these works I am attempting to capture the magical, transcendent moments of stillness in the landscape and on the water that sometimes occur just before sunrise, just after sunset, and when the tide is turning. These works revisit a theme that I return to again and again–water, an archetypal and highly symbolic medium, reflective, transparent, concealing, revealing, and transforming.

Winter River and Short Thaw are further explorations of ideas born during the weaving of White Boat.

Joan Baxter’s Biography

Born and raised in Edinburgh, Baxter studied tapestry at Edinburgh College of Art and Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. She worked for eight years as a weaver and trainer in commercial tapestry studios in the UK and Australia, notably working at West Dean Tapestry Studio in England where she translated Henry Moore, John Piper, Howard Hodgkin, and Eileen Agar works into large-scale tapestries.

Since becoming an independent tapestry artist 35 years ago, she has continued to develop her ‘tapestry voice’ through weaving personal and experimental pieces and working to commission. Her tapestries have been exhibited worldwide and have been juried into international group exhibitions. Committed to raising awareness and passing on skills, Baxter teaches and lectures regularly in Europe and North America, (and now from home via Zoom) as well as curating exhibitions, mentoring groups, and individuals, and writing about tapestry.