Paper Quilt Artist, Sami Lange

Meet Sami Lange, a paper artist in Phoenix, Arizona who has been cutting, dyeing, and stitching paper for the past sixteen years. Her work has evolved in many ways during that time, but nothing caused as large a shift in Sami's perspective as living through the Sonoma County, California fires in 2017. 

 

 

Fortunately, her home and studio were spared, but the devastation impacted her work and brought into focus what she truly valued. This led to the construction of paper quilts in an array of sizes that are a reflection of the thoughts, actions, and memories that make up our lives.

Sami's undergraduate degree is in Printmaking, which she did for a number of years before becoming fascinated by the surprising results of paper dyeing. In addition to her work as a paper artist, Sami is a college librarian and the mother of young children.

 

Her artist statement describes this meditative work further in a touching way... it is inspired by the heavy loads and responsibilities women carry in their everyday lives. "Each day is filled with thousands of decisions and movements that direct our own experiences and shape our families and communities."

 

 

Sami has noticed that since moving to the Arizona desert two years ago, her work is now more textural, which she attributes to the abundant cacti she sees on daily walks. Some of the quilts are as large as 5 feet x 7 feet. April Desert Bloom (above) is 3 feet by 3 feet.

 

As for her process, Sami smoothly hand-cuts paper in a variety of shapes before submerging the pieces in dye baths multiple times. When dry, they are secured in place with archival tape and then hand-stitched. 

Sami uses vibrant Egyptian cotton Lizbeth crochet threads. For dye, she uses two or more colors of Rit in each water bath jar. Her paper of choice is Stonehenge, a 100% cotton deckle edge paper, for both the shapes and background. Recently, she has been experimenting with using black BFK paper as a backing that gives a dramatic effect.

 

 

Enjoy this very nice focus on Sami and her work at Women Create. Her website is Sami Lange Art and she is on Instagram, also as Sami Lange Art.

All Things Paper is an Etsy affiliate.