Larkin Jean Van Horn
Larkin Jean Van Horn is a mixed-media textile artist working in the areas of art quilts, beadwork, 3-D fabric structures, and liturgical art.
Textiles and mixed media, as art for the wall, three-dimensional structures, and extravagantly beaded jewelry, form the basis of her work. She draws her inspiration from a variety of sources: her own imagination and strong sense of drama, the colorists and abstract expressionists of the past, and the wild variety of the natural world. At times Larkin’s work is a response to the grey Pacific Northwest winters; at other times it reflects the natural energy of spring and summer.
A central feature of her work is texture, both visual and literal. Whether she is exploring the organic features of forest, mountain, and seashore – the waves and tide lines, wind-bent or fire-scarred trees, strata and fissures in the rocks – or the inner landscape of emotions, spirit, and self, she wants her work to have as much interest for the fingertips as for the eye. Hence, the decision to work with fabric, fiber, beads, and found objects. Larkin is drawn to the amazing variety of texture to be found in hand-dyed and hand-painted fabrics and fibers, which adds to the abstract imagery of the work.
Although her inspiration comes from the great outdoors, the work itself is on a much more intimate scale, appropriate for private spaces, small nooks, and niches.
Larkin’s work has been exhibited and won honors both regionally and nationally. Larkin is a member of the Northwest Designer Craftsmen and the Contemporary Quiltart Association, was a founding member of the Wearable Art Study Group, past President of the Pacific Northwest Needle Arts Guild, and a past member of the Grunewald Guild Board of Directors.
Categories: Spring Sacred Arts, SSA 2023, WEBSITE Faculty Page