Fiber artist Judith Roderick uses transformative butterflies in her high desert creations

Jul. 16—With their diaphanous wings and brilliant colors, butterflies symbolize both beauty and metamorphosis. Placitas artist Judith Roderick scattered those images across her silk quilts for a one-woman show at Wild Hearts Gallery. They flit above ladders and soar into rainbows in her luminous designs. Roderick has been depicting her high desert surroundings in fiber since 1982, when she was one of the original owners of the Albuquerque yarn store Village Wools. She followed a trajectory from oils, watercolors, acrylics and lithography before she discovered the vibrant palette of silk dyes. Her journey into the path of the silkworm began in 1982, when French silk dyes were introduced into this country. "When I saw those silk dyes it was like, 'That's what I want,' " she said. "I was so thrilled with the colors." The expansive sky, the sudden storms and the looming New Mexico mountains tumble into landscapes across Roderick's silk canvas. Her butterfly series grew in part from her concern for the Earth in flutters of wings, chrysalis and caterpillars. "I decided I wanted to make something beautiful and uplifting," she said. "Then I started thinking about transformation and metamorphosis. The butterfly kept coming to me." She dipped into an old stencil stash and started pinning and painting. Roderick is no stranger to recycling; she often slices out the silk linings of old jackets to use as canvas. She created "Altar for the Earth," with its butterflies, flowers and mountainscapes, to honor the planet. "If we all thought of the Earth as a living being, she wouldn't be in the mess she's in now," Roderick said. "When you see a butterfly, it's always like, 'Ah, how lovely and beautiful.' " Her transparent hues flow like watercolor, shading and melting into natural forms — rocks, cliffs, trees and clouds. She sometimes adds buttons for texture and whimsy; at other times, she glues gemstones to her creations. Her "Rainbow of Butterflies" began with a mirrored print of the two horses with jimsonweed at the bottom of her silk canvas. "I just loved the symmetry of the thing," she said. Her smaller hand pieces (they're 9-by-12-inch to 12-by-12 inch) grew out of a trip to the caves of northern Spain and southern France last fall. "We took this National Geographic trip," Roderick said. "They all had hand prints. Those things were done like 20,000 years ago. It just blows my mind." She was meditating on the spring equinox, so her hands scattered seeds. "I have so many ideas and I enjoy making small things that are more affordable to people," she said. Roderick made her first quilt in 18 years after bringing home her mother's button collection. She looked at a silk banner hanging on the wall and decided it would look good quilted with buttons. She has been making quilts ever since. "I always came back to fiber," Roderick said. "I started sewing as a child. I learned so I could make my own clothes, so I didn't have to wear what Mom made."