Thanks in part to its multilayered surroundings, the eight-limbed star of Julia Laraway’s Your Friendly Neighborhood Tarantula looks like it could leap from the local quilter’s creation at any given moment.
“I just wanted to showcase our gentle giants of the spider world,” said Laraway, a Santa Barbara-based textile artist whose Spidey senses tingled a bit after completing her quilted ode to tarantulas.
“It was about 11 [p.m.] when I finished. It was kind of hanging on the back of my couch,” recalled Laraway, who made sure to shut the door behind her before getting in bed that night. “I was a first-grade teacher years ago, and I have three children ... I have read many, many books about art that comes alive at night.”
Now that the quilt is on display at Solvang’s California Nature Art Museum, Laraway can put some of her fears to rest, as long as she doesn’t hang out at the venue outside normal business hours, à la Night at the Museum.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Tarantula is one of several quilts by Laraway featured in the museum’s latest solo exhibition, titled California, Quilted: Wild in the Oak Woodland. Spiders aren’t the only critters the textile artist chose as her subjects, as the display includes quilted imagery of birds, bobcats, and other wildlife, along with various facets of plant life.
For example, one of Laraway’s quilts depicts her all-time favorite tree, which she namedrops in the piece’s title, The Western Oak at the San Marcos Foothills. It’s among Laraway’s various pieces on display at the museum, where her solo exhibit opened in mid-July and will remain on display through January 2025.
“The quilt does not do it [the oak tree] justice in terms of ... it’s so big,” said Laraway, who hikes trails along the foothills often.
The San Marcos Foothills Preserve—a 301-acre open space located between Goleta and Santa Barbara—is home to “lots of beautiful oak trees,” Laraway said, but the specific oak she captured in her quilt has always stood out to her and her family. Her children have fond memories of climbing the large tree when they were young.
While offering scenic views of the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Channel Islands to hikers, bird-watchers, and other visitors, the preserve is home to hundreds of animal species, and many of these creatures become the subjects of Laraway’s quilts.
For instance, 148 bird species have been spotted at the preserve, including chickadees, sparrows, and quails. Laraway pays tribute to the latter in her piece Quail Momma Quartet.
“They sort of settle in and brood their chicks; their eggs, until the chicks hatch,” said Laraway, whose quilted quartet is divided into four panels, similar to the album cover of Let it Be.
Each feathered member of this fab four is a quail rather than a Beatle though, but they probably have a thing or two in common with the “egg men” John Lennon used to sing about.
When Laraway’s Solvang exhibit opened earlier this summer, one of the first people to see the show was her mother, who was the reason Laraway took up quilting to begin with.
“I didn’t start sewing until I had children, and that was in the late ’90s,” said Laraway, who used to sew Halloween costumes and other outfits for her kids. “My mom kept telling me, ‘You need to quilt these, that’ll add texture and movement.’”
Laraway described her mother as an accomplished seamstress and quilter, who encouraged her to branch out and experiment with quilting and applique techniques as an adult. California, Quilted marks Laraway’s first solo showcase as a textile artist at the California Nature Art Museum.
“It’s been so fun,” Laraway said of the experience. “My mom was really pleased.”
Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood has never sewn a Halloween costume, but once fashioned a Ronald McDonald outfit solely from thrift store finds. Send quail mail to [email protected].
