The Shape of Repair: Patchwork in Wood
Exhibition dates: August 20 - September 11, 2026
Artist Talk: Thursday, August 20th 6:30 - 8:30 p.m., Owen 202
Opening Reception: Thursday, August 20th 6:30 -8:30 p.m.
Hooked Up, salvaged wood from material swap with CA artist, 2019
Dealbreaker, reclaimed wood, 2023
Measure Up, salvaged wood collected from homes, furniture, and discarded materials, 2019
Equational, half square wooden triangles, 2023
Artist Statement
I transform salvaged architectural wood into quilt-inspired sculptures that explore memory, renewal, and the enduring human impulse to make something meaningful from what remains. Drawn to materials marked by time and use, I collect discarded cabinet doors, trim, flooring, and siding, preserving their original colors, weathered surfaces, and traces of previous lives.
Working through a process of cutting, sorting, and reassembling, I create geometric compositions rooted in the visual language of quilts. Patchwork traditions have long transformed fragments into coherent wholes, balancing utility, beauty, and storytelling. I extend that tradition into sculpture, using wood as both structure and narrative material.
Each piece carries evidence of its history—layers of paint, nail holes, worn edges, and broken grain—while becoming part of a new composition shaped by rhythm, repetition, and variation. The resulting works exist between textile and architecture, fragility and strength, loss and possibility.
Presented in Asheville, a region with a rich craft heritage and a deep understanding of rebuilding, these sculptures consider repair not as a return to what once was, but as a creative act of transformation. They suggest that beauty can emerge through adaptation, and that renewal often begins with the fragments left behind.
Biography
Laura Petrovich-Cheney is a sculptor known for her quilt-inspired wall pieces made from salvaged architectural wood. Her work explores memory, repair, and renewal, bridging the traditions of quilting with contemporary sculptural practice. Drawing upon the visual language of patchwork, she transforms discarded materials into geometric compositions that honor both material history and the creative act of rebuilding.
Petrovich-Cheney has exhibited widely in venues that examine the social and emotional dimensions of craft, including Radical Tradition: American Quilts and Social Change at the Toledo Museum of Art, where her piece All the Light Within was featured. Her solo exhibition What Remains at the Fuller Craft Museum explored transformation through reclaimed materials, while her work in Memory and Material at the International Quilt Museum highlighted the narrative potential of salvaged wood. Most recently, she presented Homecoming, a solo exhibition at Moore College of Art & Design, celebrating Philadelphia's 250th anniversary through works that reflect on home, memory, and renewal.
Her work is included in the collections of the Michener Art Museum, Fuller Craft Museum, and Tennessee State Museum. Petrovich-Cheney's work has been featured in American Craft, Art Quilt Quarterly, The Boston Globe, and Fine Woodworking. She holds an M.S. in Fashion Design from Drexel University and an M.F.A. in Studio Art from Moore College of Art & Design. She lives and works in Marblehead, Massachusetts.
Instagram: @LauraPetrovichCheney
Website: lauracheney.com