Industrial Quilts by artist Anne Marie Kenny celebrates five years at Art Up Front Street

EXETER — Anne Marie Kenny, artist of Industrial Quilts, is celebrating her five-year anniversary as a studio artist at Art Up Front Street Studios and Gallery in Exeter.

Kenny will be celebrating with her fellow artists at the annual “Open Studios” event May 7 and 8, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., each day the weekend of Mother’s Day. Families and children are welcome to meet the artists in their studios and enjoy light bites, beverages, and music.

Kenny says her switch from a one-person studio to a collective with seven other studio artists has been an especially valuable experience as it has inspired her and has brought her closer to collectors purchasing her work. The one-on-one personal relationships and friendships she has made over the past five years “have been profoundly rewarding.” Much of Kenny’s prior experience was selling her work through art galleries and corporate representation. “My studio at Art Up Front Street now feels like home,” she says.

Kenny’s work is inspired by the Industrial Revolution, New England mill history, and the “Mill Girls” whose lives dramatically changed from working on farms to working in textile mills such as the Amoskeag and Lowell Mills. The contrast between hand-work versus machine-work influences her aesthetics and represents the changes in women’s work and lives during this period. Some of the materials Kenny uses have been salvaged from 1980’s and 90’s NH scrap yards. Her materials include cast-off microchips, electrical wire, circuit boards in addition to wire-cloth and electronic parts.

Kenny, originally from Indiana, has been a resident in N.H. for 35 years. Her work has been internationally exhibited and is in the permanent collections of the Currier Museum of Art, the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC, and in corporate collections.

Kenny enjoys talking with visitors at Art Up Front Street, some of whom come from all over the U.S. and abroad. Clients from New England and local Seacoast areas have been frequent supporters of the exhibits and “Open Studio” events. In addition, children and students who visit find inspiration in the working studios.

Visit www.artupfrontstreet.com or www.industrialquilts.com.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Industrial Quilts marks five years at Art Up Front Street in Exeter NH