BELLEFONTE —

One of the more than 60 artists listed in the Bellefonte Art Museum’s registry is Diane Maurer. Here is her statement:

Diane Maurer’s award-winning paper and fiber art has been exhibited throughout the world. Her work is represented in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum, the Dutch Royal Library and the Museum of Antiquities, Urumchi, China. Commissions include designs for Lenox China, Godiva Chocolates and numerous book publishers, including Penn State Press.

Diane has taught collage, bookbinding, marbling and paste paper design  throughout the United States at art centers and museum schools including Arrowmont School, Erie Art Museum, Historic Rittenhousetown, Pyramid Atlantic, Society for Contemporary Crafts, Smithsonian Institution, the Penland School, University of the Arts, and others. She has made guest appearances on several television shows including Martha Stewart Living. She is the author of 13 books about paper art and collage published by Watson-Guptill, Random house and Storey Books.

Diane is currently teaching children as an artist in residence with the Galaxy program in addition to giving workshops for adults and children in her home studio in Spring Mills. Visit her website www.dianemaurer.com to view examples of her paper and fiber art and see a schedule of her upcoming workshops.

Contact her at 814-422-8651 or dkmaurer1@gmail.com to schedule a workshop, commission a work or visit her home studio to see her art. Other nearby places to see some of her work include the Gallery Shop in Lemont, the Green Drake Gallery in Millheim, and booth A-40 at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts each July. 

Statement

A mixed media artist, I specialize in creating images on paper and silk, using various surface design techniques. My collages combine marbling with orizomegami (fold and dye) and paste paper design. I cut and layer my decorative papers with additional handmade papers to produce dimensional works. In addition to the texture created by layering papers, texture in my work is created by using papers that have a rough, irregular surface because of the way they are made. Handmade papers representing stone or earth are made by knocking part of the wet pulp away with a jet of water, leaving a pitted surface. 

A sense of three dimensionality is achieved in some of my paste–painted papers by the use of a special tool that gives bands of color the illusion of being ripples in water. The streams and rivers that appear in many of my collages are created this way. I also roll bits of wet paper into spheres or egg-shaped structures to represent rocks, stones or eggs which often appear on stream banks in the works.

Many of the images for my collages are drawn from nature.  Flora is a favorite theme—plant, fungi and seedpod structures appear along with forests, mountains and meadows. Images from the rural Pennsylvania countryside as well as exotic plants seen in Indonesia or Hawaii may be the focus of a work.

The Bellefonte Art Museum celebrates the human spirit through the arts, recognizing the importance of art in our lives. In 2011, the museum experienced a large increase in attendance, private donations and membership and completed refurbishing the historic Linn House. The museum opened three new galleries: the Children’s Creativity Center, the Anna Wagner Keichline Gallery and the new Louise Bloom Sieg Gallery. The museum is opened Friday through Sunday from 1 to 4:30 p.m. Phone 814.355.4280.