Artist Paints with Yarn

Six years ago Sharon St. Hilaire was visiting an art-loving friend when an unusual painting caught her eye. It was a Mexican yarn painting done by a Huichol Indian using a technique that involved embedding yarn into melted wax. Though St. Hilaire was no stranger to fiber work, having made rugs, bedspreads, doilies, lace and more over the years, she had never strayed from using a pattern.

Encouraged by her artist ex-husband, St. Hilaire began to experiment with wax and yarn. In a short period of time she built up a small body of work. She applied and was accepted into the Providence Art Club’s Annual Juried Exhibition. Two years and a few exhibitions later St. Hilaire won an Honorable Mention in the ‘Emerging Artist’ category at a Boston gallery.

“My ex-husband said ‘I knew you’d be good, but I didn’t think you’d be this good,’” St. Hilaire remembers with a laugh. 

Since then St. Hilaire has moved away from using wax due to “too many burns.” Now she starts with freeform drawing often inspired by nature and abstract patterns.

“You find yourself repeating a design over and over again so then you know you have to do it,” she says.

Once the original drawing is complete she transfers it onto graph paper and mathematically figures out the measurements for execution on a larger scale. With the graphed drawing as a guide she crochets long strands with rayon and wool blended yarn. Each strand eventually gets painstakingly glued down, one next to the other, to create a full “painting.” More recent pieces are done with layers upon layers of backstitch making sculptural forms that look like something from the bottom of the ocean.

St. Hilaire, who has been the Director of the since 1977, admits that explaining her work can be challenging. “So often if I tell people I make crochet art they think I make toilet paper holders,” she jokes. “I had one woman look at a piece and tell me I made bathmats.”

St. Hilaire views artmaking as a contemplative practice, believing the artist must work “continuously and religiously.”

“You have to enjoy the process. It is very repetitious. Some people say you need a lot of patience for it. I don’t feel that way at all. I don’t feel that it takes too long, because the process somehow cleanses my mind. If you haven’t enjoyed the process then I don’t think you should be doing it.”