Lavialle Campbell

I am an artist who works with fabric, thread and a home sewing machine to create contemporary quilts that are non-representational abstractions.  My pieces are driven by the personal pleasure that meticulous work gives me, labor that requires time and dedication as well as the challenge that results in seeing what large dimensions can be reached or how much accumulation I can generate from these small actions and simple materials.

My compulsion to create has encompassed everything from creating macramé wall-hangings, to seed beadwork, to printmaking, to painting acrylic flowers on my sister's Volkswagen (as a child). I have also always incorporated texture into my work, including in ceramics and glass.

I wanted to create paintings, but without using materials associated with western art history.  As a feminist, I wanted to use materials that were historically associated with women's work.  My work challenges the idea of what paintings can be – what can be called a painting.  My aesthetic is not based in tradition, but firmly based in modernism, Japanese minimalism, and architecture.  As an improvisational quilter, I can achieve my desired end.  Quilting, for me, serves the purpose of tactile meditation while solving a puzzle and making a thing that didn’t exist before.

My new body of work encompasses three-dimensional texture in quilting and curves – curves being a very difficult counter-intuitive style of piecing.  It has been very satisfying to conquer both styles, with a lot more coming in the future.

Art is my life, and it has saved my life through the years.  I wouldn’t be able to survive without it.

Lavialle Campbell

Full Blooded, 2022-2023

100% Cotton Quilt

25 x 24.5"

Lavialle Campbell

Leaden, 2022

100% Cotton Quilt

24 x 24.75"

Lavialle Campbell

Pitch, 2022

100% Cotton Quilt

34.5 x 36


Lavialle Campbell

Buried, 8.75 x 9"

100% Cotton Quilt


Lavialle Campbell

Shift II, 2022

100% Cotton Quilt

47 x 32.75"


Lavialle Campbell

New/Geo, 2022

100% Cotton Quilt

15.25 x 12"


Lavialle Campbell

Eclipsed, 2022

100% Cotton Quilt

11.5 x 14"

Lavialle Campbell

Shift I, 2022-23

100% Cotton Quilt

25.25 x 28"

Lavialle Campbell

Crowned, 2022-23

100% Cotton Quilt

25.5 x 26"

Lavialle Campbell

Tumbled, 2022

100% Cotton Quilt

8 x 10"


Lavialle Campbell

She Said, 2022-23

100% Cotton Quilt

33.25 x 25"


Lavialle Campbell

Hanging, 2022-23

100% Cotton Quilt

12 x 12"


 

Lavialle Campbell
Tassled Obsidian, 2000
glazed, cast earthenware with Czech
shiny and matte beads
3.25 x 6”

Lavialle Campbell

“35”, 2005

mixed media

11 x d: 5”

 

Lavialle Campbell
NB Series (with Peas), 2000
glazed earthenware with black-eyed peas
and beaded border
3.75 x d: 6.75”

Lavialle Campbell
Black and White Improv,, 2015
cotton quilt
48 x 48”

 

Lavialle Campbell
Surfeit No. 2, 1999
glazed earthenware
12 x 18"

Lavialle Campbell
Fringed (Black), 2022
glazed, flocked earthenware with loomed, Czech seed beads
8 x 4 x 3”