Gretchen Romey-Tanzer: Inspirations

Weaver Gretchen Romey-Tanzer uses the double layer technique, intricate design, and brilliantly colored cotton fiber to create works that appear to collect light, cast shadow and sparkle with prismatic ebullience. Her mastery is her ability to create the appearance of visual depth, and to provide the illusion of three dimensions, through contrasting and analogous color placement. Her work is gorgeous, which sometimes belies the highly complex process required for her to engineer such strong graphic shapes and abstract alignment of patterns.

“Art and Science were part of the opportunities available to me growing up. With a mother who was a painter/quilter and a father who was a geology professor/writer, I had rich influences. We traveled the United States in search of interesting geologic outcrops for my father’s research. My mother would draw landscapes along the way.

My artistic interests leaned towards crafts. I got my first full sized floor loom in 1972 (when I was 15 years old). It was a LeClerc, 4 shaft, 36” wide loom. We were living in Northern New York at the time, members of the Northern Adirondack Weavers Guild became my mentors and helped me get started, and I have been weaving ever since.”

Romey-Tanzer holds a BFA from Rochester Institute of Technology, an MFA from Indiana University, and studied at the Joensuu Handcraft School in Finland, as well as at the Banff Center of Fine Arts in Banff, Alberta, Canada. She is a 2019 recipient of the prestigious Artist Fellowship Award in Crafts from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She has received numerous awards, including the top exhibitors prize in both Baltimore and Crafts at the Castle, Boston, and her work is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She was an art teacher at Cape Cod Academy for 29 years and currently she weaves and teaches out of her studio in Brewster, MA.