Ally Maurer is a Chicago-based, interdisciplinary artist originally from Long Island, New York. She is pursuing earning her BFA in Studio from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is expected to graduate in Spring 2025. Her work explores the relationship between herself, her home, and the nature she is surrounded by. She strives to comfort to her audience through the care she puts into each work she creates.  Exploring different disciplines in her past is what brought Ally to currently work on large-scale quilts and soft sculpture installations.

The connection I have to my present surroundings is what drives me to work with hands-on fiber techniques. My fiber-based wall works and sculptures are infused with my own autobiography. They speak broadly about the longing, loss, and nostalgia that are an integral part of growing up and moving away from home. I strive for my audience to understand the interrelation between tedious fiber techniques and reflect on their experience growing up.

I convey how I adjust to my growing pains using fiber techniques like crocheting, embroidery, felting, and sewing. I hold these skills near and dear to my heart as they are time-consuming and involve much care and effort. The materials and techniques I use remind me of the constant growth found in nature and myself as fibers tend to be repetitive like the habits of nature and myself. I am inspired by improvisational crochet, intricate portrait quilts, and my grandma for surrounding me with carefully crafted quilts and crochet work. My audience interacts with my work through touch, alteration, and immersion. I explored my connection between my home and the landscape of Long Island through crochet, quilting, and interaction in my “Welcome Home” series. I quilted my childhood home, crocheted a tree consuming an unidentified doll, collected my keepsakes in a fabric box, and allowed people to interact with and alter yarn tied onto a knitted wire mesh.

The interrelation between my home and the nature I exist in remains a strong subject matter in my work. I aim to use quilting and installation to produce work that reveals my relationship with growing up and moving out and to push the visual boundaries of my ideas.