Sacramento artist Merle Axelrad explores the limits of textile art with her landscapes of the California coast and central valley as well as her nature studies of streams, mountains, and trees.

Using fabric as her brushstrokes, she creates images bordering on photorealism. Her "paint" is unique in that it might be plaid, sheer, or even heavily textured.

Merle carefully arranges thousands of fabric fragments, layering them over one another, pinning them, and finally sewing them together.

Commissioned for a new Ritz Carlton hotel near Lake Tahoe, this collage captures the majestic trees and rocks of the local environments, reflected in the gorgeous Sierra waters.

Rocks above the water disappear at the water line. We separate the landscape into water and shore. Caught between these two worlds, one above the water and one below, is the world of reflections. Sometimes the light is just right, and we can see all three worlds at once. That is the moment that is captured in this work.

Redwoods 2 was privately commissioned by a collector who wanted a piece to reflect the area where they grew up.

Trees are as varied and unique as people. Some seem to dance. Others stand guard. They are constantly changing. Their bark shreds and sheds, their leaves change colors and drop, and they grow. Often they overwhelm us by their sheer size. Like the story of the blind men and the elephant, trees must be described in parts. The base, the trunk, the crown - each element contributes to the whole.

This is one of a three-piece series commissioned by the city of San Francisco for the Laguna Honda Healthcare Facility, a long-term healthcare facility. Located in the entry lobby, these collages celebrate the San Francisco Bay.

Commissioned by the California Rice Commission, this collage depicts the flooded rice fields in the California-Delta area. This image was used as part of the Rice Commission’s branding program.

Have you ever been in an airplane and looked down and thought, “It looks like a quilt”? That was the start of this whole journey into fabric collage. The artist was always mesmerized by the views from the window seat. You see the bigger picture, the overall patterns, how things relate. At some point it hit her - she could make a quilt showing the view from an airplane….. and so the journey began.

This piece was commissioned to hang over a huge stone fireplace mantel in a private “cabin” in Montana. It depicts the local mountain range.

Pieces of the earth’s crust, smashing against one another, formed these varied landscapes. Water and ice defined contours. Some surfaces are gently coated with soft grasses. Others retain their craggy stoniness. But all contain that element of constrained power that caused their very creation.

This is one of two collages commissioned by an energy company (NuStar Energy) in San Antonio, Texas. They requested San Antonio landmarks.  The two pieces each depict one of the missions in that city.

This is literally the catch-all for what does not fit neatly into other categories. Should water alone be part of “Rocks and Water”? What about rocks alone? And then there are the abstracts and the buildings…. Basically, this is the repository of the world of “Yes”. When a client asks, “Can you do a building?”, the answer is “Yes”. And if Los Angeles County says they really like the collages, but they have more volume than walls, of course they should get a three-dimensional sculpture. It’s all part of “Other”.

MERLE AXELRAD

Collections

rocks and water

trees

coastal

aerial

hills and mountains

other works