fine art + design

Cindy Henry Studio

Cindy Henry demonstrating

Cindy demonstrates a series of spontaneous drawing techniques during a 2019 workshop for the New York State Art Teachers Association (NYSATA). 

about my work

Sewing, quilting, and needlework have touched my life since early childhood, as my mother and grandmothers spent many spare hours with a needle between their fingers. I create work in paper, fiber, collage, and mixed media using traditional and contemporary techniques; including hand and machine piecing and quilting, painting, fusing; building up transparent layers of sheer fabrics. My background in graphic design and drawing are evident in my love of simple compositions and my adaptation of the stitched line as a drawing element in the work. I love working through processes that allows me to audition and accept or reject elements as I work, constantly adjusting the plan and almost always leading to a product that is dramatically different from—and usually more exciting than—anything I might have envisioned at the start. 

My image vocabulary comes from simple, universal shapes such as circle, square, and cross or icons in the built environment such as pier, bridge, house, or skyscraper. These forms have many associations for me as symbols of building up and tearing down a life. I work with these symbols to embed a narrative of personal meaning into my work as I develops abstract interpretations of familiar spaces or experiences.

The images I make have a sense of illusiveness—a delicate balance of strength and fragility, security and instability. They are built on associations with personal and shared experiences, which are fleeting and personal. Experiences consist of both real and imagined events and the circumstances that surround them. Experiences pass and become filed as memories that move in and out of consciousness. Our responses to them make up who we are and what our life becomes. My work is an attempt to capture and process experiences and memories, both painful and inspirational, sometimes as a way to hold on to them and sometimes as a way to let them go.

Selected exhibitions

  • 2018 Transitions: Cindy Henry and Rachel Henry, Orazio Salati Gallery, Binghamton, NY (September 7-October 27, 2018) most Successful exhibit in sales (number of pieces and dollar sales) in the gallery’s 18-year history
  • 2020, 2016, 2015 Holiday Exhibit, Orazio Salati Gallery, Binghamton, NY **
  • 2016, 2015 Annual Members Exhibit, Windsor Whip Works Art Gallery
  • 2007-2020 NYSATA Members’ Exhibit , Jurors First Place Award (2007, 2015) Jurors Second and Third Place Awards (2014)
  • 2014 Joanne Thorne Arnold, Cindy Henry, and Thea Lanzisero; Windsor Whip Works, Windsor, NY (2014)**
  • 2013 Quilt=Art=Quilt, international exhibition, Schweinfurth Memorial Art Gallery, Auburn, NY (2013)*
  • 2013 NYSATA Members’ Exhibit Jurors First Place Award (2013)
  • 2010-13 Inspiring Thousands: NYSATA Region 4 Art Educators Show *
  • 2010 Botanica II: The Quilt Divas, Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (2010)
  • 2007 Small Quilts at the Visitors Center, Ithaca, NY **
 
  • 2007 NYSATA Region 4 Art Educator’s Show, City Hall, Binghamton NY 
  • 2006 NYSATA Region 4 Art Educator’s Show, Avenue Art Gallery, Endicott NY
  • 2006 Small Quilt Exhibition, Main Street Gallery, Groton, NY *
  • 2006 Quilts of the Southern Tier, Avenue Art Gallery, Endicott, NY
  • 2005 Annual Holiday Show, Cooperative Gallery, Binghamton, NY **
  • 2005 NYSATA Members’ Exhibit Jurors Choice Award
  • 2005 Quilts of the Southern Tier, Avenue Art Gallery, Endicott, NY
  • 2004 Eyes on Fabric, Cooperative Gallery 321, Binghamton, NY
  • 2004 Quilts of the Southern Tier, Avenue Art Gallery, Endicott, NY 
  • 2003 Quilt=Art=Quilt, International Exhibition, Schweinfurth Memorial Art Gallery, Auburn, NY *
  • 1995 Tower of Babel, permanent installation in the Kent Free Library and Kent State University Library commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the May 4, 1970 shootings **


    *Juried Show
    **Invitational Show