Heritage Museums & Gardens is hosting ten artists this year for Natural Threads, this year’s seasonal outdoor art installation in the gardens. Their imaginative works interpret the theme of connected natural and synthetic fibers by bending, shaping, and linking natural elements of Heritage Museums & Gardens’ varied terrain. The artists in this outdoor art installation use rope, cord, textiles, and branches among other materials to get us to pay close attention to aspects of Heritage’s peaceful environment. Heritage’s seasonal outdoor art installations inspire visitors to create and to their familiar gardens in new ways.

Each artist competed and was selected by a jury panel for acceptance into the show. The artists featured this year are from Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, California, Mississippi, Utah and Pennsylvania. To create the art installations these experienced  artists used knots, cables, ropes, mirrors, and yarn to express the passage of light, chaos and order, tree bark skins, and identity. Landscape configurations, webs, and woven lines figure into some of the pieces. One artist’s piece was inspired by rainwater and an ancient ceremonial drinking vessel.

Image: Modern Dance by Elizabeth Knowles and William Thielen