Shirley Carnahan

Shirley Carnahan has loved anything to do with fiber even as a child when she made doll clothes from her mother's sewing scraps. In her teen years she became an avid knitter and added various forms of embroidery to her fiber repertoire through college. About 1980 she learned to spin and weave. Realizing that she would never live long enough to do it all, she chose to focus on weaving.

"Weaving can be wonderfully simple, or complex and challenging. You can concentrate on one small aspect and become expert on it, or let each exploration take you where it will, learning more with each thing you do. You can never learn it all."

Shirley has woven everything from heavy rugs to delicate lace. She enjoys experimenting with old weaves and recreating them in modern ways. She makes interesting wearable art by dying her own threads to create fun and different color ways.

Shirley plans to use fiber from her own flock of sheep in her work in the near future. The sheep mostly are gray and brown. Adding color to the fiber from these fleeces should create beautifully saddened colors from which to weave shawls and scarves. Using natural dyes will make the threads even more unique.

Sharing her art and craft is very important to Shirley. She can frequently be found demonstrating the craft at various locations and events in the area. Shirley's work can be seen at the 60 North Centre Street Gallery in Cumberland, MD and at the Carnahan Fiber Studio in Green Spring, West Virginia.