Upper Lake >> Laraine Wade is not a woman with a plan. At least not when it comes to her artwork. Whether she’s stitching quilts, creating paintings or getting her hands dirty with ceramics, Wade thrives on spontaneity. When she begins, she never really knows quite where she’ll end up.
It’s not so surprising, then, that Wade also prefers abstract work. She doesn’t make traditional quilts with preset patterns that have been around for years. She makes designer wall quilts, which feature curves and circles Wade drew herself. She favors rich colors and interesting designs inspired by Asian art.
And the textiles are key. That’s where Wade finds the most inspiration. “I just love fabric and I like being able to put together the different combinations of colors and fabrics and texture,” she said. “It’ll be one fabric that triggers it for me. I may have ten different ones that go with that one.”
The design is completely in her own hands. She doesn’t sew on a machine, opting to work with a physical needle and thread. And no one other than Wade touches her quilts. “That’s where they come to life,” she said.
Sometimes Wade’s ideas work out, and sometimes they don’t. But it’s all part of the creative process, especially when going for the abstract. “I love design. I don’t need to do something real,” Wade said. “When you do design you take your pencil and you draw whatever you feel like. That’s the joy of it, because nobody else is doing the same thing.”
She takes the same approach with her paintings. While Wade doesn’t work with oils as much as she used to, she does paint with ink. It’s a similar process to watercolor painting, Wade explained. Using a synthetic, nonabsorbent paper, she puts down some water, then drops ink on top. Once that dries, she adds gold and silver leaf foils to the painting, though she has to be careful not to overdo it.
It’s a fairly unpredictable process, and the ink tends to do what it wants. But Wade hardly worries. “If it doesn’t work it’s just paper,” she said. “You turn it over and try it again.”
Her quilting philosophy is the same. She doesn’t concern herself with the price of fabric or what could go wrong. She simply creates. She picks up a compass and a ruler and just starts drawing. After she’s sketched out her designs on copy paper, Wade then enlarges the drawings to three or four times their original size. It isn’t until she cuts out her patterns that she even begins looking at fabric.
For more than 30 years Wade has been sewing quilts. Although her mother was a quilter, Wade didn’t pick up the art form until she had kids of her own. After becoming a teacher at Lakeport Elementary, where she worked for eight years, she joined up with a quilting group here in Lake County. Though her fellow quilters all worked in the traditional vein, there was never a time when Wade didn’t drift toward designer wall quilts.
For 15 years Wade lived, worked and created art in Lake County, until moving to Olympia, WA. Up until that point, painting had taken a backseat to marriage and kids, but she picked up a brush again when she scored a job as an art teacher at a local high school. For years she painted landscapes and sunsets, flowers and leaves. It was only a year ago that she decided she needed to try something different. She turned to ink painting.
She hasn’t given up on oils, though. She loves the way paint moves on canvas too much to leave it behind.
Wade continues to reside in Oregon, working on her art with a view of the lake. She’s creative most days, painting in the morning and quilting in the afternoon. And she stays plenty busy with shows around Washington, including two upcoming exhibits at the Washington Center for Performing Arts.
Twenty of Wade’s wall quilts are now decorating the Lake County Wine Studio, and will remain there through the end of the month. While her ink paintings are not on display, they can be viewed on Wade’s website, www.larainewade.net.
The wine studio is located at 9505 Main St., Upper Lake.
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
