Darci Lenker is a fiber artist living in Norman, Oklahoma. She has long been captivated by textiles – from sewing doll clothes with a toy sewing machine as a child to knotting hemp as a teenager. She discovered this was an actual art form in college where she focused on weaving, felting, and paper and book arts.
After many years of sewing dolls, Lenker began to shift her focus solely to embroidery. She was attracted to the possibilities of what could be done with a single strand of thread and exploring how detailed the medium could be. “Embroidery combines my love for drawing and fiber art. For me, the process of creating art is just as important as the result. I enjoy extended projects that grow little by little over time,” Lenker explains. Her focus is miniature realistic thread painting embroidery.
Lenker finds inspiration anywhere and everywhere there are interesting colors, textures, and details. She enjoys focusing and practicing her skills on different themes in a series. A series of galaxies and nebulas was inspired by her lifelong fascination with outer space that began with Halley’s Comet in 1986. Some of her other favorite subjects to recreate are landscapes, portraits, and old black and white photos. She does both pet and human portraits by commission.
She also teaches classes and workshops in embroidery and wool felting locally at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, Norman Firehouse Art Center, and Adult Wellness and Education Center, among others. Teaching others new skills has been very rewarding, and she takes pride in successfully teaching people things they thought they couldn’t do.
Lenker works out of her home studio in Norman, Oklahoma. Her embroidered artworks have been featured at The Vault in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, for Entwined, a small group show of fiber artists. Lenker’s work was also spotlighted at ArtNow 2019 at Oklahoma Contemporary Art Center where 365 of her small embroideries were installed to represent an entire year of her process. Her celestial series was on display at Science Museum Oklahoma as part of the Cosmic Culture exhibit. She was featured in the small group show, “Best in Show” at DNA Galleries in 2022. Lenker’s piece BLUE BEE won Best in Show in the 2023 juried Paseo Members’ Show and Third Place at the 2024 Woodlawn Needlework Exhibition. Her piece OKLAHOMA GOTHIC won both First Place and Judge’s Choice awards at the 2023 Woodlawn Needlework Exhibition, and she recently exhibited works in the Glenna and Richard Tanenbaum Learning Gallery at Oklahoma Contemporary. Two of her works, PILLARS OF CREATION (JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE) and MILKY WAY GALAXY, were featured by NASA for World Embroidery Day 2023. Her piece, WINTER SUNSET AT OKLAHOMA CONTEMPORARY, won Best of Show at the Oklahoma Art Guild’s 2024 Small Works Show. Her work was on display at JRB Art at the Elms in May and June of 2024.
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