Almaden Resident

Cover Story

Photograph by Vicki Thompson

On Display: Customers relax and work on their computers at Borders Books Café Gallery, where Camille Ahern's artwork is on display through Nov. 15. After less than three years in the art industry, Ahern has already secured several showings at local galleries and museums.

Creative Deviations

Retired high-tech manager turns textiles into art

By Anne Gelhaus

In her 11 years as a manager at Hewlett-Packard, Camille Ahern learned that deviating from the plan could produce creative solutions. In retirement, the Almaden Valley resident is applying that knowledge to an old passion: turning textiles into art.

"I started painting when I was a young mom at home," Ahern says. "I wanted to do something creative again to revive the creativity I thought I'd lost working in high tech for so many years."

By combining her creative outlet with the drive that helped her build a successful career, Ahern has developed both a solid body of artwork and a network of galleries and museums to exhibit it just 2 1/2 years into her retirement. Her abstract silk paintings and quilted wall hangings are on display through Nov. 15 at the Borders Books Café Gallery in Sunnyvale. Ahern's work can also be seen in the San Jose Museum of Art's "We Are Families" show, which is up through Jan. 7. In April, she'll have a one-woman show at Saratoga's Aegis Gallery, which also represents her.

While she finds painting fulfilling, Ahern says she's not just creating art for art's sake. She appreciates opportunities to show her works and hopes to make enough sales to cover the cost of the textiles and dyes that went into them.

"It's a fairly costly hobby," she says. "It's grandiose to think of it as a second career, but I'd like to be thought of in some circles as an artist."

To achieve this recognition, Ahern calls upon her management skills as well as her artistic talent.

"I don't really have a business plan, but I have goals I set earlier this year for 2006," she says. "In a month, I'll set goals for 2007. My business experience doesn't allow me to strictly have fun with it and just let it happen. I'm a goal-setter and planner by nature."

Ahern has to overcome her natural orderly tendencies when painting on silk, which is one of the reasons she enjoys the form.

"I chose the medium because it's so free," she says. "I like the challenge of the silk trying to be in control when you add the dye to it.

"Painting challenges me to do something not entirely always in my comfort zone."

Quilting, on the other hand, satisfies Ahern's urge to niggle. She can piece together fabrics of different colors and textures in myriad ways.

"There are loads of options," says the artist. "I can keep fixing until I find something I like."

Both her paintings and her quilts are abstract, as are her inspirations.

"Sometimes I think about a landscape," she says. "Other times I begin with the shape of the silk; it brings me somewhere, and I follow it. That happens a lot.

"If someone asks me what inspired me or if it represents something, I can tell them what I was thinking of while I was painting it, but I always give the caveat that the silk and dyes have something to do with it, and I'm reacting to that as well."

Ahern uses a liquid called gutta to form borders on her silk canvases and stop the dyes from bleeding into each other.

"I use a lot of layers because the dyes are translucent or transparent," she says. "It produces really interesting shades and tones of color."

The type of silk Ahern uses also affects her paintings' hues. She sometimes uses "lingerie" silk, with a sheen on one side of the fabric; other times she'll use silk that has a nubby quality. Once she's finished with a painting, she'll set the dyes by steaming the silk for a few hours.

"I've really always enjoyed textiles," Ahern says. "They have so much more texture than paper or canvas."

Ahern combines her painting and quilting skills in her latest project, a series called "Illuminations: A 21st-century Alphabet." Each piece in the series "illuminates" or comments on a particular issue associated with a letter, as in "tsunami" for T, "stem cells" for C.

"Illuminations" also refer to the medieval practice of adorning the first letter of a text with a small artwork inset on the page. For "R," which stands for "regenerative medicine," Ahern stitched a double helix on a silk painting that represents how Parkinson's disease alters neurons.

"I'm working on one piece that comprises five letters, but they're all intangible things," she says. "Anger, fear, hatred and intolerance are all horrid things we see across the globe. It got to be extremely depressing, so I decided it was also about peace."

She stenciled the word "intolerance" in different languages across the whole canvas and is in the process of stitching the word "peace" in Arabic over the painting.

She's considering placing the figure from Edward Munsch's "Scream" somewhere on the work.

"I have a small fear it will be perceived as kitschy, but it's such an appropriate face," she says.

To keep current with the changing face of art, Ahern regularly attends a critique group with fellow artists at WORKS/San Jose gallery.

"It's important to get involved with the art community because I can learn a lot from them," she says. "There's a whole vocabulary about art, and I'm learning how to talk about my art."

Getting involved with the community at large is also important to Ahern. She joined the board of Silicon Valley Habitat for Humanity six years ago after participating in a home-building project for the nonprofit with her HP employees. She served as Habitat's board president for two years.

"I thought it was a neat organization that does something good for families," she says. "It's not a handout but a hand up for families who need to be involved and make a commitment."

Although Ahern was supposed to be termed out of board service this year, Habitat asked her to stay on for one more year to help implement the organization's new 10-year plan.

Whether it's art or community service, keeping busy in retirement suits Ahern just fine.

"I always have something in mind I want to do each day, and chances are it's more than just a single thing," Ahern says. "If I don't have something to do, I'm less satisfied with life."