Gloria Justen (b. 1966) is a multi-dimensional artist based in San Francisco who creates music, visual art and wearable art. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in 1990 at the Curtis Institute of Music, and has been a professional violinist and composer for many years. In addition to making music, she has been creating visual and wearable art since she was very young. She drew and painted incessantly as a child, and she learned how to sew from her mother. She later took a course in patternmaking for clothing design at the Philadelphia College of Textiles & Science. As a teenager, she learned the skills of using the camera and darkroom from her father, a highly-accomplished amateur photographer. In the decades since then, she has learned many things on her own by reading and experimenting: both the physical aspects of her crafts and the use of digital tools.
For several decades Gloria has played and practiced with many artistic mediums, including photography, digital art, fabric painting, fabric dyeing, fabric printing, shibori resist techniques, clothing design, felting, and papermaking. Alongside her engagements as a professional violinist and composer, she has created collections of visual artwork, most of which have never been seen publicly, although she has sold many of her wearable art scarves to friends. At this time in her life, she is ready to share her visual and tactile artwork with the world more widely. In her visual art just as in her music, Gloria is interested in the gestural movement of lines and the counterpoint of pattern layered over pattern. She is inspired by infinite wonders of nature and the emotions that light and shadow evoke. Her artistic compositions begin intuitively with improvisation and playfulness, and then they are carefully honed with much attention to detail until they feel complete.
Gloria Justen, Emerging from the Deep Variation 1, Photo Art, 12x18"
