FIBER FARE

PALMER — Large cloths in vibrant colors draped like calm sheets on a country clothes line last week. Other, smaller pieces of red, yellow and blue pile up nearby. Today, those pieces and many others form what Mat-Su College students Carol Tillett and Sarah Hinson call the tree of life.

“It’s a stylized version of a tree,” Tillett said.

They call the fiber arts display “Continuum.” The show opens this evening in the Upstairs Gallery at the college.

“It’s a spiraling cloth creating a pathway through the tree,” is how Hinson, 25, of Anchorage, described the airy sculpture that was still mostly a vision in their minds with only two-dimensional sketches on paper to see the colorful maze.

There was still much to do when the two talked about their work they started installing this week and would take them three days to finish the display. They still had to dye the primary colors into hues that adhere more to the earthy theme. Then there was the whole hanging and draping thing in what Tillet called an odd-shaped gallery.

“It will take a few days to install,” Tillett said. “We’ve been working on it all semester,” the 54-year-old Meadows Lake artist said, seeming to hint that it seems slightly daunting for months of ceiling-to-floor work come to fruition in only days.

In their artists’ statement, Tillett and Hinson describe the Advanced Fiber Sculpture as merging fiber art and fiber mythology.

“Stepping into our installation is the choice to enter a realm of texture, color and the cyclic force of the three Fates. The installation appears as an abstracted tree of life, where you may move through the roots, trunk and branches as they spiral around the room.”

While art lovers may see the common elements of the visual tree, Hinson said finding the fates in the work won’t be so obvious.

For those not familiar with the Fates in Greek mythology, think of the beginning, middle and end of life. They are:

• Clotho. The spinner. She spins the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle.

• Lachesis. The apportioner. She measures the thread of life allotted to each person with her measuring rod.

• Atropos. The inevitable. She cuts the thread of life. She chooses the manner and timing of each person’s death with “her abhorrèd shears.”

If that’s too dreary, concentrate on the tree.

In their statement, Hinson and Tillet wrote that the branches and roots will be made in a spiral motif while the trunk will be of three pieces about 7 feet wide and 9 feet high.

“They will stretch floor to just below the ceiling, and will be curved at their bases to form three positioned crescents in an open circle shape. The tops of the cloth pieces will also be smaller versions of their base crescents.”

Some of the obstacles they faced beyond the time it took from conception to reality, and the cost of materials, were more practical. Fire safety was one, and handicapped access was another. For those who may attend in a wheelchair or walker, the roots that stretch out from thick to thin can be moved so everyone can find their way through the swirling forest. And no campfires allowed.

“Conceptually, we have been researching the tree of life,” they wrote. “This has led to other areas of related interest, in particular, the mythology of the three Fates. However, while we wish to include some of the subtleties of our research on the fates, the feminine, etc., by using elements like color, overlapping elements, and the number three, it is not the focus of our expressed conceptual intent. We think the idea of the abstracted tree is ideal to present directly to our audience, which would allow any other subject matter to be left up to the audience to interpret.”

Because of its unique construction, “Continuum” likely won’t end up in anybody’s home, Hinson said.

“We might look at other venues,” to install the work, she said. “But it’s not something you could buy.”

If you go

“Continuum”

Opens today 4 to 7 p.m. through Dec. 12

Upstairs Gallery, Mat-Su College

Mile 2 of Trunk Road.