Ree Nancarrow: Sharing the World I Know

About the Artist

Art quilter Ree Nancarrow makes quilts that tell of climate change and its impact on the Alaskan landscape. Nancarrow makes custom-printed fabrics that feature images and designs she has collected and created over her art career. She combines these fabrics and quilts each piece with intricate designs. An understanding of the natural world infuses her work. Nancarrow has collaborated with scientists across many disciplines to deepen her understanding of this place she’s called home for over 60 years.

Artist Talk

Artist’s Statement

Change has always been a part of my creative process, in either the subject matter or the techniques I use.

Seasons of Denali, completed in 2008, was a pinnacle of a body work that portrayed part of my world from the viewpoint of a naturalist. I used every surface design technique for fabric that I knew and learned more. Seasons was commissioned by Denali National Park for the then new Eielson Visitor’s Center. In 2021, a huge landslide at Polychrome Pass closed the park road making the visitor's center inaccessible. The park service has generously allowed me to show “Seasons” until the visitor’s center reopens.  

“In a Time of Change”, a Fairbanks, Alaska program, became a significant influence in my work beginning in 2010. Selected artists work with scientists for 1-2 years and then create works expressing their understanding of that work for an exhibition at the end of the collaboration. 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.  

This knowledge and concern for the world I live in led me to tell stories of climate change such as wild land fire, permafrost melt, development of greenhouse gases, bark beetle infestations, and creation of methane bubbles. On a personal level, I sadly watched Deneki Lakes, a small tundra pond outside my living room window, change over the course of 50 years. The lake habitat shifted due to water depth that decreased from 5 feet to 2 feet. Fewer species live there now, and their numbers have decreased. 

My work changed again in 2020, when I began to create most of my work digitally, using images and ideas I have collected and designed over my entire art career. I incorporate images of drawings, immersion and clamp-dyed fabrics, silk-screened and deconstructed silk-screened fabrics, quilts I have made, and photographs. With these new skills I experiment with images, create new and unusual color palettes, and express ideas that have interested me for years.  Designs are custom printed on fabric; I then sew them together and quilt each piece elaborately, enhancing their rich imagery and detail.