LaVerne Kemp: August 2024

Today, LaVerne’s award winning textiles have become iconic in Pittsburgh’s fiber arts community. She’s known as an amazingly talented artist with a long history of quality art making. Her powerful artwork draws the viewer in through her adventurous use of color, pattern, motion, and meaning. Over the years, LaVerne’s work has evolved from incredible woven clothing to include jewelry, greeting cards, wall hanging, sculptural dolls, and home goods.

She explores and incorporates on and off loom weaving, hand made felt, traditional and Japanese Shibori dying techniques, and beading to enhance her work.

Her work has been exhibited extensively across the US and featured multiple times in the Carroll Harris Simms National Black Art Competition and Exhibition in Dallas and has multiple awards from The African American Art Exhibition at Actors Theater in Louisville.

Recently LaVerne participated in the Smithsonian Museum's Craft Optimism and Future Vision at the Carnegie Museum of Art for Women of Visions 40 year anniversary.

My medium at any time might be weaving, quilting, felt making, fabric dying, basket making, or bead work, but my passion and education has been in weaving. My art is soft and tactile and invites you to touch and interact with it. My artwork always relates back to my African American heritage and traditions by the colors, patterns, and symbolism that I use. For example, if I am weaving, I have to put my own spin on it, Im not a traditional weaver by design, I’m told you can feel my heritage shining through my work by my use of materials.

My artwork ranges from large scale wall hangings and trees to smaller home decorative pieces like table runners and area rugs to wearable arts such as shawls, ponchos, and jackets. I use a variety of materials from wool and silk that I purchase from across the US to repurposed fabrics, yarns, beads, and buttons for embellishments. I might turn anything into a piece of art! Ive never liked to waste and I’ve always been able to see the beauty in things that others can’t imagine.

I have been weaving since I took an elective in college called Threads and Fibers, where we made baskets, macrame, rugs, etc, it changed my life. I produced large wall pieces like my professor, Leslie Parkinson, and she talked me into taking a weaving class. Although the loom was intimidating, I progressed from weaving a sampler to a coat in no time. I never had an art class before college but I always knew that I had an artist’s spirit. I always felt a little different but very creative, like both of my grandmothers. I come from a family who all had their own businesses so the art helped me assume my place in the world. Initially I went to college to be a teacher and now Im able to share my gift with my students through the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts residency program using weaving and textiles as a vehicle.

My passion for weaving started while attending California StateTeachers College (now California University of Pennsylvania). Initially, I wanted to be a teacher. I took a fiber class as an elective and it ended up being a life altering change. I always had the heart of an artist and I knew that I wanted to work for myself like many members of my family. In the end, art and education seemed to be my calling. That was a decision made 40 years ago and I haven't looked back.

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