Fabric artist Tori Costa will be displaying her collages fashioned from textile materials at the Somerville Media Center through March 28.

By Isabel Sami

The Somerville Media Center is now showcasing a number of contemporary textile pieces by Tori Costa, a fabric artist and former Somerville local. Costa makes collages out of recycled materials she’s acquired from her travels as well as from her own home, and she says that part of the reason she began to make fabric collages was due to her lifelong love of textiles and fabrics. She is also aided by her background in quilting, a craft she began after graduating college twenty years ago.

Costa says her designs are inspired by the quilts of Gee’s Bend, a group of African-American quilters in Alabama who are known for their contemporary quilts made from recycled cloth. The textiles in Costa’s collages are mostly made from former clothing, such as denim from old jeans, pajamas, ties, and upholstery, and she uses these to juxtapose traditional designs with more modern ones. |

Using a sewing machine, Costa stitches different fabrics together after cutting them into geometric shapes of her liking. Then she embellishes with embroidery and detail work that she stitches by hand to add dimension and extra texture to the piece.

Many of the fabrics she uses have unique patterns or textures to add a certain flair or pop of color to the work, and Costa creates a blend of patterns in each piece. She says she adds her own style to very traditional quilting blocks by making her pieces asymmetrical and combining many different fabrics rather than the usual two or three.

“Before I sit down to sew I go through my fabric collection and pull together a number of pieces I think would go together but are different materials, patterns, and colors,” Costa says. “Then I’ll sit down and try to create as many collages out of that pile as I can. I really try to challenge myself to use these materials to create something that is different and will look different to people.”

“It’s a really great show,” says local photographer Stan Eichner. “She’s come to this relatively recently, and yet she makes many powerful pieces which are interesting as a group but also each one is enticing and attractive on its own.”

Costa’s collection at the Somerville Media Center features seventeen pieces ranging from eight-by-eight inches to eight-by-twelve inches. She says she focuses more on the fabric than the design, and each piece requires a few hours of work depending on the size, complexity, and process. She says, “Sometimes I’ll be really inspired and can create three or four pieces in five or six hours, but other times it can take me weeks to create three or four pieces. A lot of it really depends on the creative vibe. Sometimes it will be really quick, but often it’s just about the creative process and where I’m at.”

Costa says that each piece in her collection has a story. A few of the collages are made from old ties, and Costa likes to imagine that each tie brings its own story to the art, like when it was worn to family dinners or important events. “I think that this idea that stories and a connection to the past through an art piece is important,” she says.

The pieces in the collection, which are also available for purchase after the showcase closes, will be up at the Somerville Media Center,  90 Union Square, from now until March 28. For more information, visit her website at teeceestitchery.com.
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