Sala´s World

The Artist

BACKROUND Helena was born in South America of Polish parents with an incessant need for creativity. She has lived in Andorra, Belgium, France, Holland, Pakistan, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, U.S.A. (CA, GA, PA, NY, FL) and Venezuela with influential visits to the Balearic Islands, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, England, Italy, Puerto Rico, Russia, and U.S.A. (CO, FL). This international back round, and her Slavic roots promoted a life long interest in · Folklore and craft specifically in the decorative use of thread and fabric. · Architecture and construction. · Diversity of flora and fauna including humans. THE ARTIST In the mid 80’s Helena was asked to work with a renown American artist building art works of rice paper and silk, in the “patchwork” technique. Here she found the form for her creativity and beloved medium of fibers. The professional artist Sala was born as she joined the Art Quilt movement. THE WORK Unique to Sala Art Quilts is the use of unconventional fabrics and elegant construction, both in large works as well as miniatures. Unique to Sala’s Art Quilts is the use of high texture fabrics such as jaquards, giving a rich tapestry look to one-of-a-kind, original works of art. They have been exposed in Europe (as in La Caixa, Andorra) and the USA (as in “Tactile Architecture”, Carriage House, Washington D.C.) and are part of both commercial and private collections in these two continents. The “quilt” is a sewed construction of several layers of fabric, with an utilitarian and decorative purpose. The decorative layer is a composition of bits of fabric whose technique is known as “patchwork”. In its origins and until today, the quilt is a kind of a blanket which is crafted by many cultures in all continents, the oldest sample of which has been found in the tomb of an Egyptian Pharaoh. With time, the craft evolved to an art, forgoing it’s utility, that “offers a more just balance between tactile and visual than does painting or sculpture.” –John Perreault, THE ART QUILT. The contemporary movement of the Art Quilt has been acclaimed in the USA, Europe and Japan.