
Join us at Filter during the entire month of October as we feature, Bold Stitch, a collection of wildly vibrant and textured fiber wall hangings, capturing vivid imagery through yarn by Olivia Hill.
Olivia uses bold lines and colors as well as stitch direction to pull the viewer in closer to her exotic yet playful depictions of animals, plants and landscapes.
BIO
Olivia Hill is an Atlanta based Fiber artist. Raised in Birmingham Alabama, by two artist parents she decided to take the art route herself after deciding a tradition 9-5 wasn’t her style. Olivia creates bold and colorful wall hangings by punch hooking images into a stretched cloth. She works out of her home studio in Atlanta and absolutely loves what she does. Olivia and her Boyfriend Matt live with their two silly rescue dogs and enjoy exploring Atlanta and trying new restaurants!
WHAT IS PUNCH HOOKING?
Punch hooking, also known as punch needle is in the Fiber arts family. Not to be confused with needle point, punch hooking uses the tension of the substrate fabric to hold in the yarn stitches. This requires the base frame or hoop to be properly stretched very taught to ensure the integrity of the piece of art. After the substrate fabric is stretched, its time for the under-drawing! This can be made with any type of fabric marker and will be the “map” for you to follow with your needle and yarn. The front side of the stretched fabric displays the tightly organized stitches and the backside of the fabric displays the loops which can be longer and more organic in form. The backside loops are often trimmed down for neatness and presentation.