Watch Ree's Alaska State Museum Artist Talk

At the APK presents Fiber Artist: Wall Quilts with Ree Nancarrow

Fiber artist Ree Nancarrow draws inspiration from her observations of the natural world having lived in Alaska for nearly 60 years. Using techniques Nancarrow learned in 2020, she been able to digitally combine her huge inventory of personal marks and images, created over a lifetime of drawing, photographing, silk screening, stenciling, stamping, painting, and hand dyeing fabrics. These designs are custom printed on fabric and elaborately quilted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvjI9Ob6SCE

Artist interview in Northwest Designer Craftartists newsletter

An interview with Ree is featured in the January 2025 newsletter from Northwest Designer Craftartists.

You can read the full interview online here.

"NWDC is pleased to share the art and ideas of Ree Nancarrow for the first NWDC Artist Interview in 2025. Ree currently has a solo exhibition titled Ree Nancarrow: Sharing the World I Know on view at The Alaska State Museum until March 15, 2025."

Solo exhibition opens Dec. 6 at Alaska State Museum in Juneau

Sharing the World I Know is a new solo exhibition featuring quilt works by Fairbanks art quilter Ree Nancarrow. It opens at the Alaska State Museum on December 6.

Exhibit Opening

Friday, December 6, 4:30–7:00 pm

Lecture

Saturday, December 7 at noon in the APK Lecture Hall, Alaska State Museum

For 50 years, Nancarrow watched a small tundra pond outside her window called Deneki Lakes. She tracked the shifting habitat at the lake as the water level dropped over time. Fewer species live there now. 

In 2010, Nancarrow started working with scientists through a program called In a Time of Change, which supports collaboration across the environmental arts, humanities, and sciences in Alaska. She explains how this collaboration informed her work: “The knowledge and deeper understanding of the natural world gained from working with these scientists has changed how I see the world, and how I describe it visually. That knowledge and concern for the world I live in led me to tell stories of climate change such as wildland fire, permafrost melt, development of greenhouse gases, bark beetle infestations, and creation of methane bubbles.”

She makes her quilts with custom-printed fabric. The fabric features images and designs she has collected and created over her art career. She sews them together and quilts each piece with intricate designs, enhancing their rich imagery and detail.

Sharing the World I Know opens Friday, December 6, 4:30 – 7:00 pm. Ree will give a talk about her work on Saturday, December 7 at noon in the APK Lecture Hall. Both events are free.

The exhibit runs through March 15, 2025.

Ree is one of six artists selected for the Alaska State Museum 2024–2026 Solo Artist Exhibition Series, along with artists Myesha Callahan Freet, Shgendootan George, Joel Isaak Łiq’a yes, Golga Oscar, and Tamara Wilson.

Ree will be displaying the following 20 quilts at the solo exhibition.

• Inner Light (new)

• Salmon in the Trees (new)

• Spruce Bark Beetles

• Methane Bubbles 3

• Mountain Tapestry

• Dwarf Birch, Light

• Denali Weather: 100 Years

• Permafrost Melt in the Boreal Forest

• Advancing Destruction

• Polychrome Slide

• Seasons of Denali

• Caribou Migration 2 (new)

• Ancient Dwellers (new)

• Dusk (new)

• Signs of Danger (new)

• Change at Deneki Lakes (new)

• Forest Microbes

• Habitat Loss, Plumage Mismatch

• One Spruce

• High Mountain Storm

Ancient Dwellers

45" h x 62.4" w

2024