Judith Larzelere

"I want to catch your interest from afar and continue to delight you as you near the surface of my quilts. I love the expressiveness and challenges of color, and I hope to engage you in enjoying my abstract work. I have had the pleasure of being a studio artist for more than 35 years, and I treasure this life."

Judith Larzelere is a visual artist who does with fabric what would be awkward or difficult in another medium. Hard-edge slices of fabric seem to melt into moving fields of color. Color interactions build dynamic flow, excitement, and mood. To create these effects, Larzelere balances deliberate planning with uncertainty about the exact look of the completed piece.

Larzelere is known for developing and expanding the expressive limits of strip piecing and machine strip quilting. Hand-dyed cotton fabrics are the primary components of most of her quilts. Each quilt starts with a small, scaled plan. Fabrics are then arranged on a table as they will be cut and pieced. Interaction of color is key to the sense of space she creates in her work.

Judith Larzelere holds an MFA in painting from Rutgers University. She is self-taught as a quilter and developed her signature style by 1983. She studied the books of Joseph Albers and Johannes Itten to expand her understanding of color theory so she could apply this knowledge to her quilts.

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Selected Exhibitions & Awards
Judith Larzelere - Art Quilts solo show, Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI, 2007
ACC Craft Show Baltimore, Convention Center, Baltmore, MD, 1985-2005
Quilt Visions-Modern American Art Quilts, Oulu Museum of Art, Oulu, Finland, 2015
Rhode Island Fellowship in Craft $5000 grant, RI Arts Council, Providence, RI, 2014
Ardis James Tribute Exhibition, invitational show, International Quilt Study Center, Lincoln, NB, 2012
Collections
Collection, National Quilt Museum, Paducah, KY, 2013
Collection, International Quilt Study Center, Lincoln, NB, 2010
Collection, Visions Art Museum, San Diego, CA, 2012
Collection, Museum of Art and Design, New York, New York, 1992
Collection, First National Bank of Boston, Boston, MA, 1990