Fabrication: Artist bends the rules of quilting

(Sentinel photo by Magdalene Landegent) Jo Alberda displays one of her fabric artworks, an intricate and daring form of quilting, part of an exhibit at the Le Mars Arts Center for the month of May. Alberda will explain more about her work at a "Meet the Artist" reception from 1-4 p.m. Sunday. [Click to enlarge]

You've never seen quilting like this before.

Bright oranges, deep blues, burnt reds. Dreamlike images and stitching that defies straight lines.

Jo Alberda's artwork, on display at the Le Mars Arts Center, combines simple designs with intricate and irregular stitched lines that run through and around the image like hundreds of rivers.

Alberda, of Sioux Center, started sewing as a young girl under her mother's guidance.

But as an adult, she stepped away from the craft to pursue a master's degree in art education, teaching art at Dordt College in Sioux Center for more than 30 years.

Then, three decades ago, she decided to get involved with a group of quilters in Sioux Center. She liked what she saw and learned from them.

"The strength of traditional quilters is the rhythmic quality. The repetition, the patterns," she said. "That's what keeps it popular."

She has a name for it -- visual music.

Alberda began to weave that art form into her own art.

She fused together multiple fabrics and stitched over them, bending the rules of quilting by deviating from straight lines and strict patterns.

She combined this with her love for photography and capturing light on simple objects in nature -- like seed pods and cocoons. These are often the subject of her work.

"My work can be described as a translation of everyday images into an aesthetic format," she wrote in her artist's statement.

The viewer's eye, she wrote, is at first attracted to the images of the common subjects. But then, their attention slips quickly to "the rhythms and textures and colors of the formal arrangements."

Most of the pieces in one of the Arts Center's galleries focus on some tall weeds Alberda picked in Blue Mound Park in Minnesota. The skinny stalks bugle out where a certain type of fly has burrowed inside, making perfectly round, balloon-like shapes.

"Anything round like that has a way of catching light," Alberda said.

The resulting artwork looks a bit Dr. Seuss-ish, with bold, warm colors and shapes parading around the room.

Alberda's collection on display also includes some batik work.

Batik is a technique for dying fabric in which the artist covers part of the fabric in hot wax, then applies dye. The dye only seeps into the fabric where the wax doesn't cover it. When the wax is removed, rich patterns emerge.

"Wax and dye are not easy to control," Alberda said. "You never quite know how it's going to work out."

One of her batik pieces, a row of glowing red cherries, tempts you to reach out and take a taste.

You almost forget it's fabric.

Alberda will be present to share more about her work, "Improvisations on Nature" at a reception at the Arts Center from 1-4 p.m. Sunday.