Abira Ali joins us as artist in residence at the East Barnard Linen Fair in 2024 and it will be her second year on site. Abi brings extensive gifts of art and community building and we’re excited to have her return.
“I find the story of flax and the tools and traditions of flax and linen quite inspiring. I’d like to take a closer look at the tools of the trade. Drawing and painting is my way of getting closer to something – a way of exploring.”
– Abira Ali
Abira lives and works in Los Angeles, California, a long way from East Barnard. But she has deep connections to the east coast and to Vermont. She went to high school in Pennsylvania with Robin Maynard, co-founder of Green Mountain Linen. “More recently we met up in Pasadena at the Huntington Gardens and she pulled out a flax hand spinner along with a tuft of flax fluff. She proceeded to demonstrate how to spin flax thread. Robin told me about the Green Mountain Linen project and invited both me and my husband, the artist Gordon Henderson, to visit East Barnard Linen Fair and the community that makes it happen.” Abira has painted on linen canvases for many years and loves the surface and nature of the material for making art.
A gifted oil painter, illustrator, curious mind and community arts champion, Abira sets her eye on the world and interprets it with curiosity and a deeply creative impulse. She founded a collaborative art making space, Wisdom Arts Laboratory (WAL) whose goal is to facilitate imagination by offering an atmosphere with wonderful materials, art instruction and music. In 2023 she had a solo show at the Monterey Art Museum, exhibiting her series of paintings inspired by bird nests. Her work is ever-evolving as she creates art that connects to place.
“As an artist, I am inspired by the magnificence of nature. I use painting to transcend my earthly surroundings and send something positive into the universe. I live for moments when I am open enough to become a vehicle for creative process. For many years I have collected bird nests. I wanted to document them by painting their portraits. They are interesting from a graphic point of view – they have great lines, form and elegance. If I found a nest made of flax that was not being used by a mama bird – I sure would paint its portrait.”
The history of flax and its role within community intrigues Abira and aligns with her artistic vision. “I’d like to take a closer look at the tools of the trade. Drawing and painting is my way of getting closer to something – a way of exploring. I’m also quite intrigued by the names of the tools and procedures. Linen has its own terms and they are poetic as well as essential to the process – words like retting, scutching and hackling somehow take the plant to towels, sheets and pants.”
“I love how growing flax and producing linen builds community. Each step has its experts and necessity. Linen is so wonderful, beautiful and practical, and unlike polyester it is biodegradable. Most cotton uses a lot of water to grow and the run-off from over spraying of insecticide is toxic to our water systems. Linen seems to be an all around positive plant.”
Come meet Abira at the fair and see how she sketches, writes, paints and builds her work around the tools of flax and linen.
