globetrotter

A fiber artist, a fashion designer, a skilled craftsperson and an educator; Precious Lovell acquired her Master’s Degree from North Carolina State University’s College of Art + Design with a concentration in Fibers and Surface Design. She earned her BFA in Fashion Design from Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts. For two decades, Precious worked as a clothing designer in New York City, most notably as a Design Manager at Oshkosh B’gosh. Following her successful stint as a practitioner, she transitioned into teaching as an assistant professor of Fashion Design at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Doha, Qatar and Richmond, Virginia campuses.

Precious Lovell’s current artistic practice consists of garment-based art through which she explores the narrative potential of cloth and clothing.

"When I pick up a piece of fabric, a needle, and thread, I am reminded of how stories and histories are revealed in cloth and clothing. Whether in the quilts I slept under while growing up in Pilot Mountain, NC or in the dresses my mother made for me, cloth speaks of tradition, and a process that has influenced my life. I have combined my love for garment making with surface design by using clothing as canvases. Traditional textiles and clothing heavily influence my work. And I use traditional techniques such as dyeing, beading and embroidery in combination with new technology like digital printing and laser cutting.  My use of the three dimensional form of clothing in human scale is intended to suggest to the observer inhabitation and to maintain the human connection.  The garments often read like pages from a book revealing historically, socially and culturally inspired stories. Over the many hours of forming the fabric and stitching the details I utilize these stories to infuse my work with meaning and create textile objects that engage viewers on both an aesthetic and emotional level."