Art
Quilter Bernie Rowell:
Savvy Businesswoman,
Inspired Artist, Wise Mentor
by Melissa R. Stanz
Diminutive, gracious
Bernie Rowell is a rare breed of artist.
She’s been successfully
making her living doing the art she loves for more than
25 years. Not many artists can make that
claim, and it’s a tribute to her talent, persistence,
and business savvy.
Bernie, who creates
colorful, multilayered contemporary art quilts, grew up
during a time when the rules for women were quite different.
“I was told that IF
I went to college, I could be a teacher, a nurse, or get
my ‘MRS. degree,’” she
recalled. “So when I went to Michigan State and
majored in art without plans to teach it, I was really
swimming upstream. I was
also taught that selling my art was selling out!”
 |
Bernie
Rowell |
For
a time, she did teach art, but always continued to create
her own art to feed her passion and to earn extra income.
She raised two children, creating soft sculpture Batik
toys with them, learning more about color and dyes as
she evolved from toys to clothing to wall pieces.
Her need to make
a living doing art led her to work with the American
Craft Council. She participated in art shows
across the country, traveling on the show circuit and
taking wholesale orders. She
returned home to create the orders—small wall pieces—using
dyes on raw silk, overstitched with beads and machine
embroidery. Slowly, she shifted from dyeing
materials to painting on them, creating fabric landscapes,
playing with paint on canvas. She began to make larger,
one-of-a-kind works.
To
create awareness and desire for her larger format art
quilts, she realized she had to develop marketing savvy.
Bernie embraced this learning process with persistence
and creativity. She markets herself to specific target
groups using personal contacts, a series of postcard mailings
showcasing her work, and her Web site, www.bernierowell.com.
She makes certain her client base knows about
museum exhibitions and gallery shows, and she maintains
an open studio in her mountain home.
Supporting herself
for more than 25 years as an artist requires more than
market savvy, however, and Bernie has an indomitable will.
“I
believe in myself, and I invest in myself,” she
stated.
“I also give back
to the art/craft community that has nurtured me over the
years.”
She no longer needs
to do the show circuit, and works from her home studio
near Asheville, NC, focusing primarily on large format
commissions from corporate and individual clients nationwide.
She chooses to do two shows
a year in Asheville, the Southern Highland Craft Guild
shows (she’s been a member of this juried, prestigious
guild since 1976). Her work graces elegant
homes across North and South Carolina, and has appeared
in museums, including the Mint Museum in Charlotte.
The Fayetteville Museum of Art will feature her work in
January 2006. Her large quilt wall hangings also
add color and texture in various business settings, including
Mitsubishi Semiconductor
America in Durham, and North Carolina Women and Children's
Hospital in Chapel Hill.
Art
Quilts Inspired by Personal Ethics, Experiences
 |
“Hardware/Software”
paint, canvas, computer boards, discs, CDs, uncut
silicon wafers
34" x 25";$1400 |
 |
“Recycled/Computer
Scrap Quilt II”
paint, canvas, computer boards, disc-drive units,
beads, pieced and quilted; 55" x 42";from
Wachovia Bank Technology Center collection |
Bernie’s
body of art quilt work reflects her personal standards
and diverse life experiences. One unusual
series called Computer Scrap Quilts evolved from her desire
to recycle. One day she was “dumpster diving”
in the back of an electronics shop, searching for packing
materials for her art. She
came across several computer components
in the dumpster and was fascinated by their visual beauty.
She decided to incorporate some of these
obsolete computer components into her quilts, including
chips, circuit boards, CDs, silicon disc slices, and disc
drives. “To me everything is an art material, and
these materials are beautiful! The
technology changes so fast that components are trashed
before they are ever used,” she
explained.
The result is more
than 100 works incorporating these components,
some of which hang in high-tech business lobbies such
as SAS Industries and Wachovia
Bank’s technology center. “I
just felt it was a shame to trash these visually
beautiful future fossils, and this is my effort to recycle,
to give them a new life,” she said.
 |
 |
| “For
the Tribe of One-Breasted Women”;mixed-media
art quilt 60" x 37";Quilt National 1997
collection of Fairfield Processing |
“Shield
for a Toxic Planet”; mixed-media art quilt;
framed to 31" x 25"; $1000 |
She has also quilted
a series called Shields
for Women Warriors, created to honor women fighting breast
cancer. A friend who lost both breasts
to cancer inspired these pieces, and the original artwork
was a gift to acknowledge her friend’s courage and
wisdom.
Her current
focus is on a landscape and garden series based on the
natural beauty of the western North Carolina mountains
where she lives. “Nature is so pervasive
here, and I love gardening and plant forms, and the way
the light changes on the mountain ranges surrounding my
house. It’s a constant source of inspiration for
me,” she noted. “These
quilts are very healing and soothing; many hospitals have
purchased them for those qualities.”
 |
 |
“Tropical
Escape/Winter”
canvas, paint, embroidered collage, pieced, quilted;34"
x 38";SOLD |
“Mountain
Garden/June Hummingbirds”
canvas, paint, embroidered collage, pieced, quilted;34"
x 42";SOLD |
Although the landscape/garden
series has vast possibilities, at
some point Bernie will move to another visual expression
for her quilts. “I have to evolve;
I just can’t repeat the same series over and over
again. What I typically do is work on one concept until
I’m satisfied with it. Then the challenge is gone
and I move to something new. I’m fascinated
by the problem-solving aspect of creating art.”
Like all artists,
Bernie creates for herself first, even when she’s
busy with client commissions. “I
love doing my own work, and I create things for my own
personal satisfaction and to participate in gallery shows,”
she said. She is beginning work now on several pieces
that will appear at Blue Spiral 1 Gallery in Asheville
in March 2006. This multi-artist show will feature artists
who create nature-inspired work.
Mentoring
and Giving Back
Bernie believes
strongly in teaching others the joys of art quilting.
Last year, supported by a NC Arts Council Arts
in Education grant, she helped an eighth-grade class in
rural Madison County create quilts. About 40
students created two unusual quilts. The idea came from
an advanced math teacher, who thought that creating
student-designed quilts with a professional artist would
teach the children about quilting, life and math skills,
culture and themselves. Bernie enjoyed
teaching problem-solving and quilting skills, and was
gratified that the quilts reflected the students’
homes, culture, and interests.
Bernie recalled
some initial reluctance among the boys. “They thought
it was, well, sort of sissy to do this; they thought it
was women’s work,” she recalled. “But
I told them just to think of the sewing machines as another
power tool. They liked that!”
Actively involved
with the Southern Highland Craft Guild, Bernie volunteers
for many different activities. As part of a Guild
program to connect young girls to professional artists,
she mentored a 12-year-old Girl Scout, Jocelyn, for six
months. Jocelyn learned to sew, and Bernie helped
her make a quilt that includes drawings of her favorite
pets. The quilt won an award at the State Fair. Currently,
Bernie is establishing a
mentoring program for new Guild members, something she
believes will help them create faster, greater awareness
in the market.
Creating
art for a living is no easy task, but it’s part
of the fabric of Bernie’s life—a life that
includes creating art, marketing art, time for reflection
and inspiration, and time to give back.
To learn more about Bernie and her work, visit www.bernierowell.com.
Melissa
Stanz is a freelance writer and marketing communications professional
with nearly 30 years of experience. She has managed corporate and marketing
communications for Fortune 500 companies, a publishing company, and
a private college. In 2000, she started her own freelance writing and
marketing communications business from Asheville, NC. She serves a variety
of corporate and individual clients, and writes feature stories for
a number of regional magazines. She especially loves to write stories
about strong, interesting, giving women.