Andrea Hungerford & Ingunn Milla Joergensen
Botanicals
Andrea Hungerford
This exhibition is a collaboration of botanically inspired art, celebrating the color, beauty, and bounty of Maine as we slide from spring into summer. My fiber and fabric creations use only natural fibers and botanically infused colors, and are influenced by my wanderings in nature and around the world. Much of the wool and fleece I use to weave are grown, dyed, and milled in New England, and the flowers I use to dye with are often harvested from the fields and roadsides of Maine. I explore various structures of weaving, patchwork, hand sewing, embroidery, knitting, and quilting to fuse functionality with artistry, finding ways to celebrate beauty in everyday utility. My work ranges from the most delicate and ethereal wall art to pieces that can cover your table, your bed, or your shoulders on a chilly summer evening.
In this stage of life, I’m taking every opportunity to travel the world, deepening my experiences wherever I am presently located, and drawing inspiration from the people and places I encounter. It is truly a time to meander . . . through nature, through foreign locales, through different creative media and experiences. I’m embracing my need to make more than one thing, to experience more than one place, and to express my creativity in more than one way. Meander Made Weaving is a journal of my experiences, exploration, and experimentation.
Ingunn Milla Joergensen
I have always painted! Or created.
For many years life was busy raising children, a few moves around Europe and a career as an art teacher in the Norwegian school system. Then in 2007, we moved to Maine from Norway for what we had planned to be a two-year work/explore experience and here we are still…
Needless to say Maine has our hearts. What initially was meant to be a two-year focus on painting became a full time job and I feel incredibly grateful that my work is represented in private collections all over this country.
I spend as much time as I possibly can out in nature, by the ocean or in the woods that surround our house. We are lucky enough to have a huge garden, where we grow lots of our own vegetables, massive amounts of flowers and where our chickens roam freely. Gardening is a huge passion along with painting, so one day it just felt natural to merge these two into florals and botanicals.
As in my other work, I still value the same elements: lots of room to breathe, the quiet and the serene. Negative space is as important. To me, the sketch will always be the more interesting, the slightly imperfect and even unfinished. These florals have re-introduced me to using color. Many of my barn and landscape paintings have a very subdued palette, which I really embrace. Now, I adore when the brush picks up shades of pinks and yellows and dance around my canvas. Like in all the fluttering magnolia blooms…
