“MARGARET BEACH: STORIES TOLD AND RETOLD” AN EXHIBIT OF NARRATIVE QUILTS ART UPSTAIRS GALLERY AT MAYO PERFORMING ARTS CENTER JANUARY 17, 2012—MARCH 6, 2012 ARTIST RECEPTION SUNDAY, JANUARY 22 FROM 3 PM TO 5 PM

The Art Upstairs Gallery at the Mayo Performing Arts Center presents the work of Margaret Beach in “Stories Told and Retold”, an exhibit of narrative quilts from January 17, 2012 through March 6, 2012. An artists’ reception will take place on Sunday, January 22 from 3-5p.m. The reception is free and open to the public. 

Margaret Beach’s narrative quilt carries on a unique American tradition of quilt making by women but with a new contemporary, personal touch. Margaret is self-taught and thus brings a fresh, uninhibited approach to her artistic voice.  In the past, quilts were a communal effort created by women using available fabrics and classic design patterns.  But Beach takes this endeavor onto a higher artistic and creative plane.  Her quilts are visual icons to genre paintings, works that tell a story or depict scenes of everyday activities.  Her roots are literary and draw on memorable authors like Henry David Thoreau, Shakespeare and James Thurber, incorporating their inspirational words into her “canvasses”.

Beach’s artistry is distinguished by a strong eye for color and pattern.  She uses vivid and bold colors on her palette and with intricate, original designs to enhance her subject matter with her stories and messages.  She is truly a tour de force in her artistic oeuvre, combining the old with the new, the present with the past and a universal vision to pass on to future generations.  But whether telling a personal chapter in her life or depicting an historical event, her subject is always the human condition in all its joys and sorrows, humor and pathos of men and women and children of all ages, races, religions and nationalities.