Chris Motley

Artist’s Statement

My art is an exploration of color, form and three-dimension with fiber, using as my medium the techniques of knitting, a life-long avocation, with fulling. The process of knitting itself can be a driving force in my art, since it is a meditative process for me, and a design can emerge as I am knitting. Alternatively, I develop an idea from something I see or feel in the real world or in my head, unrelated to yarn at all, that triggers a curiosity to translate the image or emotion to fiber. This is the case with the sculptural projects I am currently pursuing which involve developing final pieces from smaller knit and fulled units. As life itself develops from segments and phases of time, the final form of the units together emerges as I knit and explore.

Having learned to knit from her mother as a child, Chris Motley is using a lifetime of technique to develop knitting, with fulling, into her medium for art. She is loving her second life as an artist, begun after 30 years in a left brain career. Chris’s work has been shown throughout the US and in Canada. She lives and works in San Francisco.