Beth Guipe Hall combines encaustic collage with traditional fiber arts in a new exhibition, Ghost Hands. Developed in collaboration with friends and relatives, the show is a tribute to countless generations of women who, despite limited opportunities in the public sphere, created intricate, handcrafted textile works in the course of their daily domestic lives. The pieces these women created–quilts, embroidery, hand-tatted lace, and doilies–required painstaking work with mathematical precision, and they were seldom seen outside the home.

Nowadays, surfing eBay or Goodwill.com, Guipe Hall finds these stunning works of art for sale – undervalued. “I come across piles of handmade lace or embroidery or doilies that people don’t seem to want anymore,” she says. “It bothers me because so much time was put into these pieces.”

A Harrison Center artist for nearly two decades, Guipe Hall is best known for her explorations in encaustic collage, using natural beeswax as paint, adhesive and sealant to create multilayered multimedia artworks that can incorporate photographic images, found objects and other elements.

Since childhood, however, she has held a fascination for vintage clothes and textiles, sparked by visits to antique stores with her mother and grandmother. Now she is incorporating such handmade textile pieces into her art. She notes that this “women’s work” often involved collaboration among groups of women. “I can collaborate with these women who have passed, by using their handiwork in my work,” she says.

Guipe Hall also invited friends and relatives to contribute their own materials and time to the project. She offers special thanks to Anya and Nelli Aslanova, Jenny Del Fuego, Susan Guipe, Emma Hall, Christina Hollering, Kate Oberreich, Nina Suntzeff, Yeabsera Tabb, and Allison, Harper, Margot and Audrey Ford for their creativity and generosity. Ghost Hands will be on display in the Harrison Gallery through the month of October.