domestic craft

New Artwork: Sanctuary

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I am still working on pieces that incorporate fabric and textile traditions! Here’s another of those, featuring a parent grebe and its chick - specifically, the great crested grebe (Podiceps cristatus). Be prepared for all the adjectives coming up: the surface fabric is a modified Baltic open weave wool and lace curtain from the 70s. I removed some of the wool for conceptual color palette reasons, and cut away a curtain section entirely to let the painted panel show through.

On the sides of the panel, an Estonian jacquard trim makes two appearances! The band is finished on both sides and features different patterns on each; I used both on the perimeter.

This is Sanctuary, acrylic, vintage wool and lace curtain, and jacquard trim on wood panel, 18.1x12.2x1.5”, 2026.

Shelby Prindaville's mixed media painting of a grebe and chick with vintage curtain and jacquard trim.

New Artwork: Vigilance Is Our Weapon

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A companion to Surveillance, this work casts black-headed gulls as drones above a sea built from lace- and felt-placemat stencils and stamps. To evoke the stark visual language of USSR propaganda, the composition relies on a limited color palette and flat, simplified forms. The painted red laser beams begin as perfokaart stencils and then scale progressively toward the panel's edges. The substrate is a crochet base panel used for bags and accessories; ironically, the perforations in the panel are laser cut. Through its use of domestic textile imagery and substrate, the piece serves as a bridge between my Soviet occupation series and my ongoing explorations of Estonian craft traditions.

The title of this piece comes directly from a USSR propaganda poster from 1953.

This is Vigilance Is Our Weapon, acrylic, lace and perfokaart stenciling, and felt stamping on crochet base panel, 11.8x11.8x.125”, 2026.

Shelby Prindaville's gulls-as-drones painting on crochet base panel.