Artist Spotlight: Cathy Kleeman Stitches Ideas

Cathy Kleeman has one of those hobbies that takes up a whole lot of space.

There's an old thermal fax machine, a sewing machine, dyes and boxes and boxes of thread and fabric.

It was nearly 15 years ago that Kleeman left a job with the county planning office to become a full-time artist, and she never looked back.

Kleeman's work is currently on display at the Mansion at Strathmore in Bethesda through Aug. 16 as part of an exhibit titled "Inform/Re-form."

Her abstract works evoke landscapes, sunny skies and unique textures she arrives at through hours of experimentation.

"I've always liked quilting and hand crafts and things like that," said Kleeman, who sewed her own clothes when she was a teen. "I actually started quilting in the late '80s and doing traditional quilting, which is where you make a bunch of blocks and you sew them together and you make a bed quilt or a baby quilt or a lap quilt or something that's functional."

In the 90s, she took classes in art quilting, learning tools of the trade like textured painting or using freezer paper as stencils. A teacher advised her to get an old-school thermal fax machine, which she uses to test and transfer designs.

Some of her tricks include dying her own fabrics then throwing the quilt-in-progress, sewn to its cotton backing, into the dryer.

"That makes the back shrink up, then I paint on [the quilt]," she said,

Her pieces range in size from just a few square feet to dozens of square feet. Depending on how you look at it, a piece could take her weeks or months to complete.

Kleeman, who said she's always been interested in geography, holds a degree in natural sciences from.

Many of her pieces are influenced by the outdoors: the sun hanging high in the sky, breezes across a meadow, scribblings on walls. Graffiti, too, often informs the scribbles of fabric across her work.

Sometimes, the final product may change midstream. Much like an artist splashing paint on a canvas, she said it wasn't "until well into the process" of building "Breezes" that she envisioned using blue strips to evoke the wind.

Kleeman's work has been shown near and far, in places she may never visit.

"Right now, I have a quilt at the American Embassy in Bangladesh as part of the Art in Embassies program," she said. "But I'll probably never go see it."

Closer to home, Kleeman said she's about to start building a new studio above a new detached garage this fall, making bigger pieces and entering more shows than ever.

"You're not limited by a canvas," she said.

At 64, she shows no signs of slowing down.