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Holly Sorensen's fascination with fiber
began in her childhood, while playing in the old woolen mill her family
operated in Connecticut. "The colorful webs of yarn, noisy clanking
looms, and rich smell of lanolin were magic to me," she says.
After graduating from the Rhode Island
School Of Design with a B.F.A. in graphic design, she worked for Glen of
Michigan in New York and later illustrated children's stories for a
computerized reading program at Stanford University in Palo Alto,
California.
After some extended travel, she settled in a
small fishing village in Alaska where she rediscovered her love of fiber
while learning to make coiled baskets from beach salvage hemp fishing
line. She began to study various weaving techniques, made her first
loom, and started to explore yarn dying processes.
Space dying, a method producing multiple
blocks of color on a single skein of yarn, became her signature, and she
continues to use space dyed yarns in most of her work. She has created
hand dyed and woven rugs, wall hangings and clothing.
In this present body of work, Fiber
Expressions, she has brought new dimension and movement to her wall
pieces. Through the incorporation of various stiffening elements - foam
core, pipe insulation, aluminum flashing, and bent plexiglas - she has
managed to bring her pieces "off the wall." Excited about
working in three-dimensional space, she feels she has just begun to
explore the possibilities.
Holly presently has her studio in Empire,
Michigan, where she finds inspiration for her fiber art in the soft
palette of the local landscape.
Holly's work can be seen at the Belstone
Gallery in Traverse City, Michigan.
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