January 16 – April 13, 2024 • Library and Community Galleries

Artist statement:

I have been rug hooking for over thirty years and while I have always designed my own rugs — often abstract, geometric — I have also created a number of them that come out of my life. Rug-hooking is an intimate, personal art form — making use of old clothes of one’s own or of a loved one’s. You hold this work in your lap, like a child, as you work on it. Therefore, it’s not surprising that a rug can hold so many memories.  

My Life in Rugs is a show revealing my personal and interior life — from houses I’ve lived in, to landscapes I have walked through; from family and friends, to tools I have used and flowers I’ve grown. Done over a number of years, these rugs are a visual diary of my life. 

Many of my rugs are completely or partially done using natural-dyed fabric from plants that I have collected around my homes in Stockholm, Wisconsin and Golden Valley, Minnesota. The materials used include cotton monk’s cloth, recycled wool, and naturally dyed wool. They are all hooked and about a ½” high. And for the rug hookers, I use mainly 8 cuts.

Artist bio: 

Mary Logue was born and raised in Minnesota. She has been working as a textile artist for over thirty years and has studied with many well-known rug makers, including Mary Anne Wise, Michelle Sirois-Silver, and Eric Sandberg. Most of her rugs are influenced by nature—patterns and landscapes, flora and fauna–but she has also done portraits of family and friends.  

Her rugs have been exhibited numerous times since 2004 in the Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition; the Brunnier Museum in Ames, Iowa, 2002; Artists in the Kitchen, Textile Center, Minneapolis, 2018; Abode Gallery, Stockholm, WI, 2017; Anderson Center, Red Wing, and Tohono Chul Gallery, Tucson, AZ, and The Baldishol: A Medieval Tapestry Inspires Contemporary Textiles, Norway House, Minneapolis, 2020. In 2017, she did a month-long residency at Textilsetur (Icelandic Textile Center), Blönduós, Iceland, which included a show of some of her work. 

Solo exhibitions include Many Hands Gallery, Crystal; Simpson College Gallery of Art and Design, Indianola, IA; and Gallery 360, Minneapolis. Logue’s rugs have been featured in numerous books including Hooking Faces by Tish Murphy, and Modern Hooked Rugs and Contemporary Hooked Rugs, both by Linda Rae Coughlin. In addition, she has written a number of articles for Rug Hooking magazine and has taught rug hooking at Textile Center in Minneapolis and North House Folk School in Grand Marais, MN.  

Logue is also a writer and has published 14 adult mystery novels, five books of poetry, several non-fiction books, and many children’s books. Her most recent book, The Big Sugar, was published by The University of Minnesota Press in 2023. 

For more information, contact Mary Logue through her email, marylogue@comcast.net.