The Eastern Shore Art Center is proud to present the works of students who were influenced by guest abstract textile artist Louisa Hargett. Louisa comes from a long line of artists and has traveled extensively. She holds a degree in fine art and has most recently studied in Spain, working on her Masters degree. Traditional Mayan weaving was an 18 month course of study in Guatemala, followed by three years of travel and study in Cuba, New Zealand, and the South Pacific. Louisa has a great amount of experience with photography and has been working with sculptural textile work in Barcelona this past year.

Louisa first worked with the ABC Program several years ago, leading the youngest children in the Hurricane Healing workshops. The use of art as a healing form became a subject of her study in this past year.

To see more of her photos and gallery installations please go to her website www.Louisajane.net You will be amazed at what she created with her grandmothers old silk and nylon stockings, also incorporating wax, rope, steel and plaster in sculptures.

As an outreach offering to area teachers, Louisa presented several workshops teaching the nontraditional weavings shown here. Some of the schools also had Louisa as a guest speaker, showing her impressive power point of her amazing “Out of the box” (My words) creations. They had never seen anything like it!

The schools participating shown here are : Left wall , Fairhope High School’s classes of Lynda Williams, back wall, group weaving of Suzanne Hudson’s creative writing block class from Fairhope Middle School, Right Wall: Upper level: Ruby Lange’s Murphy High School students, Right Wall,lower level: Stephanie Bromley’s Hankins Middle School, and Back Wall: Nancy Kelly’s students from Central Baldwin Middle School. Also by the front door are some students showcased from various schools, some from the Baldwin County Alternative School.

As always, it’s been a pleasure working with Louisa. Read the students thoughts as they reacted to the project and

“What would you like to weave together in your world?”