By Anicka Edwards
Dianne Baker is a local artist, born and raised in Buffalo, who uses “found” objects, manipulating the interplay of texture, color, line and shape with metals, fiber, and whatever else she finds.
“I have been working with recycled materials and found objects in collages, assemblages, and installations, etcetera, for over thirty years – and now that “green” is in vogue, I may be hitting my stride,” Baker says.
In a circuitous journey to her craft, Baker majored in history while in college because her father wouldn’t allow her to major in art. He wanted her to major in something with a solid foundation that would pay the bills after college. So she acquiesced, and then spent a semester of her junior year in Florence, where history and art gelled in her mind. Now all the materials she uses have a history, and she makes them into art.
For instance, she uses a mixture of methods of fiber manipulations that have historical origins relating to ancient cultures, though she says she never wanted to produce traditional tapestry.
In her adult life, Baker’s renewed interest in her passion led her to take many art classes and workshops, along with attending conferences. Then she began a shop that supplied materials for fiber arts, called Fiberfolk, on Edward Street, but after 4 years, she closed it to devote herself to her own artwork.
Baker’s artwork engages her viewers in looking, lingering, and responding. She loves to explore change and growth – things that look one way and turn into something else. Her accumulated materials and objects become new things, some with humor, nostalgia, joy, or unexpected weight, thus revealing old/new, quiet/unquiet, and soft/hard.
In juxtaposing these incongruous assemblages, Baker says, “I am looking beyond the outer form for the suggestion of an inner meaning; to capture the magic in the ordinary.”
You can view her work at Studio Hart on Allen, and Ashwood Artisans in East Aurora. She also has installations in Texas, Slovakia, and Washington.