Meet Your Representative -  Cynthia Parry

As a young child, I was impressed watching my mother use needle and thread to cross-stitch beautiful patterns on linens for our home.  I was also greatly affected by my father’s love of woodworking:  cutting pieces of fragrant wood and putting them back together to create something wonderfully decorative or something functional.  Their processes and their chosen mediums implanted in me an interest in color and in textures and in creating in a way that appeal to the senses.

My style of fiber art often reflects compositionally stylized Asian themes, an aesthetic that is a direct result of being born in Japan of an American father and a Japanese mother as well as my frequent trips to Japan.  I strive to connect with the viewer on an emotional level, to provoke thought and further conversation and to create interest in and knowledge of Japan by utilizing the texture and color afforded by fiber.  Due to my affection and continued connections to Japan, I spent several years fabricating a deeply visceral series about the triple disaster (quake, tsunami, nuclear disaster) of 2011 that occurred in Japan.

I am also both an avid flower gardener and Japanese flower (ikebana) arranger.  When not reflecting a Japan theme, the garden beckons and often insists on making an appearance in my pieces.

My Japan series has been shown at the Japan America Festival in Overland Park, Kansas; at the KAW Quilt Guild in Lawrence, Kansas; on NHK TV Japan and NHK World TV as part of Japan’s week of remembrance on the fourth anniversary of the disaster; the Little Balkans Quilt Guild in Pittsburgh, Kansas; and the series travelled with the Original Sewing and Quilt Expo in the fall of 2016 first to the D.C. area, then to Chicago area and finally to Minneapolis where I met my pieces and did daily gallery talks.   Most recently I was the featured speaker with my series for my regional SAQA meeting in 2017.

I live in Kansas with my husband of 27 years and five feather-faced kids.

*Find me on Facebook at Cindy Parry Quilting