Exhibiting in the Main Gallery is Resident Artist Carla Fisher’s In Collaboration with Nature. Fisher invites viewers into a world where fiber, texture, and the natural world intertwine. Sculpting with thread as her primary medium, Fisher uses a water-soluble substrate and layers of color to create ethereal two- and three-dimensional works that evoke the quiet strength of nature itself.
Guided by her lifelong muse—the natural world—Fisher transforms ordinary and discarded materials such as Tyvek envelopes, coffee filters, and dryer lint into works of unexpected beauty. More recently, she has incorporated true elements of nature—including shells, skins, and sycamore bark—blurring the line between what is organic and what is artist-made.
With each intricate stitch, Fisher captures nature’s textures, rhythms, and renewals, celebrating transformation and the enduring connection between art and the environment. In Collaboration with Nature is both an homage and a partnership—where thread, time, and the natural world work together to create something quietly transcendent.
Guided by a lifelong spirit of adventure, Carla Fisher has lived a life defined by exploration and creativity. Alongside her husband, Ed—who served in the U.S. Army for 31 years—and through her own 25-year career in financial services, she embraced a nomadic lifestyle that carried them across the country and around the world. Even in retirement, the pair continued their travels in a forty-foot motorhome, pausing wherever inspiration called.
Following Ed’s passing in 2013, Fisher turned inward, pursuing a degree in art at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and discovering a new creative voice. Since graduating in 2016, she has built a thriving career as a studio artist, creating sculptural works in two and three dimensions using thread, recycled materials, and encaustic wax. Her art has been represented by galleries and agents, and exhibited and collected in nine countries, including England, Korea, Italy, Ukraine, Japan, Canada, Hungary, Austria, and the United States.
As one of the inaugural artists at Cherry Street Pier in Philadelphia, she worked in a dynamic, public-facing studio environment that encouraged direct engagement between artists and visitors. In 2020, she relocated to a small coastal town in North Carolina, where she founded a combined gallery, studio, education center, and art supply store—continuing her mission to cultivate creativity and community.
Throughout her artistic journey, Fisher has earned numerous awards and distinctions for innovation and excellence in art, including the MUSA International Women’s Essence Award for Innovation in Art (2025), and the DaVinci Award, presented in Florence, Italy in 2020, a biennial recognition bestowed upon 100 artists worldwide for exceptional artistry and innovation—a standard she continues to uphold through her work.