A rich weave of places, skills and traditions
- Amber creates layered pieces of wall art that thread together multi-cultural influences
- Her detailed sculptural compositions employ multiple techniques from weaving to appliqué
- She teaches weaving classes in her studio in Minneapolis and in Marshall, North Carolina
For Amber Jensen, weaving offers a portal for uncovering her Scandinavian roots. Hailing from a long line of master sewists from Norway and Denmark, she studied drawing and painting at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design before enrolling in a post graduate weaving class. “It sparked the artist in me that I always knew was there,” she says. Amber moved to a small town in western North Carolina to explore authentically American weaving traditions. Neighbours donated their family looms and before long, she was developing her own signature style, weaving a first layer of fabric, then incorporating additional layers through an improvisational process of darning, stitching, needle felting and appliqué. Amber is interested in the intersection between Scandinavian, Appalachian, Indigenous and Germanic textile traditions. Now based between Minneapolis and Marshall, North Carolina, she crafts rugs, wall hangings and accessories whose bright colours, nature motifs and geometric patterns evoke her varied, continent-spanning influences.
Interview
- How does your background in painting and drawing influence your weaving?
- I try to recreate what I can do with a pencil and gouache. For example, I think of weaving as replicating colour wash and embroidery as replicating organic pencil lines. I think about my first layer as being like a blank sheet of paper and then I use these different techniques to add layers.
- Can you share a turning point in your career?
- Living in Appalachia for a decade was a formative experience. I remember a group of local women stumbled into my studio one day. They recognised the weaving patterns of their grandmothers and great-grandmothers in my work. That was a pivotal moment because it made me realise the power of weaving to connect us.
- What lessons have you learned that you now pass on to your students?
- An elder once told me that the cloth really comes to life when you pull it off the loom. It is perfectly tensioned on the loom, but when you pull it off it, loses its tension and it becomes another thing. That is the moment when you have to work to bring it to life again.
- Why is your craft so important to you?
- Weaving is my meditation. It is also a way for me to understand myself and the world. You can really only see about six inches at a time when you are weaving, so you have to let go of a lot and be present.
Amber M Jensen is an expert artisan: she began her career in 2006 and she started teaching in 2020
Where
Amber M Jensen
