The art of two dozen fiber artists from the Olympic and Kitsap area have been included in the new “Fiber & Beyond” exhibit at the Latimer Textile & Quilt Center in Tillamook, Oregon.

The 58 pieces by members of Peninsula Fiber Artists include original fabric designs, plus silk painting, weaving, necklaces, bracelets, art quilts, felted masks, quilted bowls, sashiko, and non-traditional embroidery. 

The art was inspired by Native American button blankets, nature photography, wildlife, Japanese kimono, and vintage magazine illustrations. The show continues through Aug. 28 (latimerquiltandtextile.com).

According to the Peninsula Fiber Artists, some of the art pieces were created especially for the exhibit; others have been shown across the U.S. at such juried exhibits as the QuiltCon, AQS QuiltWeek, Quiltfest, Contemporary Quilt Association, International Quilt Festival, and American Craft Council shows, as well as at LaConner’s Pacific Northwest Quilt & Fiber Arts Museum, the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, and the Port Townsend Wearable Art Show.

Highlights of the exhibit include:

Port Townsend artist and Jamestown S’Klallam elder Celeste Kardonsky Dybeck’s “Kardonsky Family Tree Button Blanket,” which honors the family created by her Port Angeles parents, the late Walt and Dee Swanberg Kardonsky; and “John the Owl Button Blanket,” both inspired by Native American button blankets. Dybeck collaborated with Port Angeles artist Candice Olsen on the images representing each parent and child.

Donna Lark’s “Snowshoe Hare: Lepus Americanus,” a head piece sculpted of merino and finn wool roving, mohair curls and hand-dyed silks, and her “Animals in the Landscape,” “Osprey-Pandion Haliaetus” and “Water Is Life.” Active in the Port Townsend art community, Lark recently relocated to Redmond.

Felted beads, the basis for Port Townsend artist Janice Speck’s necklaces, which combine the soft wool shapes with ethnic and vintage beads she has collected, plus beads dissembled from thrifted jewelry.

Four artists’ pieces use fabric they designed.

Port Townsend’s Caryl Fallert-Gentry will exhibit “On the Wings of a Dream” and “Checks & Balances,” which use fabric she hand dyed or painted, as well as yardage of her designs that was commercially printed and sold by Benartex.

Original designs that were digitally printed are featured in the pieces by Mary Tyler of Chimacum, Linda Carlson of Sequim, and Donna Lee Dowdney of Bainbridge Island. 

Dowdney’s “Lava Dreams” and “Lava Rivers” began with acrylic paint poured on canvases that were then photographed by Fallert-Gentry, the images computer-manipulated and then printed on cotton by on-demand digital printer Spoonflower before being enhanced with embroidery, thread painting, and other embellishments.

Tyler’s designs begin with computer programs that generate fractals, never-ending patterns. Once created, the fractals are manipulated by her in Photoshop. After the images are sent to Spoonflower for digital printing, she quilts them.

Carlson’s “Faces of the 40s” wearable art was also sewn with fabric printed by Spoonflower, in this case using a design created by the artist from scans of illustrations in actual 1940s magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s.

Peninsula Fiber Artists includes lifelong artists as well as those who have come to art as second careers, those who have made it a retirement passion, and those who seek an introduction to textile and fiber arts. It came together in 2013 as a chapter of the international organization, Surface Design Association and a permanent venue, the Fiber Habit window in Port Townsend’s Uptown neighborhood, where it offers a 24/7 walk-by exhibit that changes six times annually. The group also has a permanent exhibit in the North Olympic Library System. Monthly meetings ordinarily rotate between Port Townsend, Sequim, and Port Angeles, and are open to guests at no charge; visit sda-np.com/meetings for the schedule.