Viewing “The Fabrication of Imagination 2017” at the Arts League of Lowell (ALL) Gallery on a mid-summer’s afternoon was very enjoyable indeed. Well-lit and attractive, the high-ceilinged space allowed the 3-D fiber works to be displayed to their best advantage. The exhibit is part of an on-going tradition in Lowell, Massachusetts during the summer months, with most of the city’s larger arts and cultural institutions participating in a collaborative celebration of quilts and fiber-related works.

The works at the ALL Gallery present a microcosm of a variety of the possible expressions of fiber art that have developed in the United States over the past 60 years. Starting in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, experimentation in all areas of art flourished in the U.S. Fiber artists working at the time took on a revolutionary fervor that ultimately contributed to the establishment of fiber as an accepted fine art medium. No longer seen as women’s craft, fiber art began to be represented in galleries and museums as an art form in its own right. It was particularly suited for experimentation, since its standards were not as restricted or as well-defined as in other mediums.