DECATUR - Is she a painter, a weaver, a seamstress or a sketch artist?

Photo Gallery Jamie Florea's show 'Frame of Mind'

To decide in which field, if not all, that Jamie Rutherford Florea excels, the best bet is to view her paintings on display this month in the Beacon Art Gallery.

Florea's art graces a wall much in the same way a piece of tapestry does. That is her intent.

Her paintings frequently use earth tones and vary in size. One of them, for example, measures 95 inches in height and drapes well onto the floor. They are all unframed.

"That's OK with me," said Florea, about the canvas that reached to floor and beyond.

She's not much for being confined by rectangular shape, the kind created by frames, as witnessed by part of her artist's statement about the show:

"I realize that a square canvas would be the faster, more efficient way to paint. However, interwoven paintings have an entire other dimension or layer. This technique creates a textural surface while emphasizing the difference between the juxtaposed strips of canvas."

Some of her canvases support themselves, though some have carpet backing. The carpet backing, said Florea, is a fairly recent addition on her part. Adding the carpet creates more weight and stability for the canvas, she said. She puts in grommets for hanging ease.

"With carpet padding, there is no visible evidence of how (the paintings) are hung. It's like a tapestry on the wall, with interwoven parts."

Yes, teased her husband Ioan Florea, it was fitting that the carpet-backed paintings were hung on the walls using carpet tacks.

Adding the carpet made it more of a finished object, Jamie Florea said, though she likes that the canvas edges may appear a little beat up and worn.

Florea's canvases are a mixed creation. In some cases, she has combined more than one painting, cutting apart one and weaving it into another. In others, only one canvas was cut and woven into itself.

Her adventure into weaving her canvases, once the paint dries, came about when she laid several beside themselves, experimenting by putting them into different positions.

"One of the keys is laying paintings next to each other. I liked the way the lines met," she said.

So she hit upon the idea of literally weaving them together.

Or stitching them. Or stitching onto them. Or both.

As a viewer looks at her work, sometimes handwriting leaps out, but in the next it may be a photograph. In still another it's a face.

"I like using writing," said Florea as she and Ioan hung the exhibit. "But I don't want to use it in every one. And I want it not so legible."

That leaves the possibility for viewers to interpret on their own what the handwriting says. Her original photographs are what she has incorporated, created through a gum dichromate process, she said. That allows her to color it any way she chooses.

Florea is fairly adamant that the faces she includes have no-;hair.

"If you have hair, they may look more like somebody," she explained. "They are just supposed to be human."

Florea said her woven art has been a "learn as I go process." She has tried different ways both in weaving and in sewing on her paintings since a graduate student at the University of South Dakota.

It's not something that comes naturally.

"It was really hard the first time," she said, to cut up something she'd created on canvas. "I took a chance and it worked."

Now, Florea added, she's learning to knit. Another possible dimension in future art?

WHAT: "Frame of Mind," interwoven paintings by Jamie Rutherford Florea.

WHERE: Beacon Art Gallery & Entrepreneurship Center, 201 N. Main St., Decatur.

WHEN: Through March, opening today with artist talk at 5:45 and 7:15 p.m.

INFORMATION: 391-6476.

ON THE WEB: www. beaconartcenter.com.

Arlene Mannlein can be reached at amannlein@herald-review.com or by calling 421-6976.