It's possible to forget the daily dreadfulness when surrounded by the textile art of Ada Niedenthal, on view in a second-floor gallery overlooking Main Street in Russell, Kansas. Meticulous patterns, piecing, embellishments, and hand-stitching invite the viewer into an alternative world of color and image in 32 pieces on view in the exhibition “Beyond Comfort” at the Deines Cultural Center through October 8.

Niedenthal, who now lives in Mission, Kansas, graduated from high school in Russell. She proposed the exhibition so the closing reception on October 5 will coincide with her 50th high school reunion. After leaving Russell, she earned her first art degree at Fort Hays State University, and her second in landscape architecture at Kansas State University. Her career took her to Purdue University as an associate professor of landscape architecture, and then to her own landscape architecture consulting firm in the Kansas City area until her retirement in 2000.

When she returned to full-time art in 2002, she chose fabric. In her artist statement, Niedenthal says, “My mother taught me to sew clothing and piece quilts. My grandmother taught me to tat and hook rugs. I taught myself to knit, crochet, and weave. Later, in school, I learned to draw and paint, use watercolors, oils, acrylics, and pastels. Now, in the making of fabric/textile art, I am bringing it all together.”

Abstract works like “Be Happy” and “Love What You Love” advise the viewer to perceive shape, color, texture, and pattern as conduits to joy. Bright yellow rays on a hand-dyed green background sparkle with beads and golden threads in “Be Happy.” Cool blue and burgundy strips and a handful of buttons appear in “Love What You Love,” along with the title and other patterns that Niedenthal prints directly onto the fabric. 

The artist carefully plans and constructs these works with hand-dyed and commercial fabrics, as well as beads and buttons embellishing these and many others. While piecing, sewing, and embroidery are traditional quilt-making techniques, Niedenthal uses them expressively, without the need for strict adherence to repetition or pattern. It’s the liberties she takes with her materials and process that lead the viewer into a different visual experience.

“I love the problem-solving aspect of textile art,” Niedenthal says in her statement. “This show reflects the variety of ideas and problems I have chosen to explore over the course of 20 years.”

So, how to read the two latest pieces on display, titled “Distraction #1” and “Distraction #2,” made this year? Both depict green and gold spirals or vortex shapes with small suns at the centers. In each work, Niedenthal uses lines of embroidered feather stitch reaching toward or away from the suns, bringing order and repetition to a whirlpool that may feel frightening if gazed into too long. In her statement, she says of fabric, “I love to cut it apart and sew it back together again”—a line that reverberates with both destruction and hope. In a short phone interview for The Shout, Niedenthal said these works are a response to current political events.

A larger piece in blue and red from 2009 also explores the spiral, but remains unembellished with beads or hand-stitching. Instead, its title, “Evening Shade,” refers to a time of day and hints at a season. The largest piece in the exhibition, “Maelstrom,” is a technical tour de force with overlapping concentric circles in ten predominant colors, each block both reminding the viewer of complex quilt patterns while reinventing ideas about repetition with intricacy and the energy of pop art. 

Alongside these abstract works, Niedenthal is also interested in nature. She cites growing up on a farm as a source of her vocabulary. Five dandelion clocks rise from their ubiquitous serrated leaves in “Dandelions,” which are richly decorated with beads and stitching. Creamy yucca flowers seem to glow as they float over the hand-dyed, sunset-colored background in “Yucca in Flower.” Spiky aloe leaves dictate the shapes of stitched lines and surrounding fabric pieces to create a six-pointed star, referencing most directly a traditional quilt pattern in “Succulent Aloe Vera.” Seed beads subtly trace the plant’s green triangles. 

Perhaps the only exhibited landscape, “In the Wind,” depicts a flat but layered Kansas countryside sprouting with the three-bladed rotors of wind turbines like daisies which have lost most of their petals. And wind is also one of the subjects of “Wheat #3,” which shows three ripe heads of grain bowing to the gale. Each plant is an individual, related by color to the others, but each unique. Stitched lines and many small pieces of fabric that depict the blowing field’s green and the sky’s blue surround each wheat head.

Works in the show are for sale, and the artist will donate 25% of the revenue to the art departments at Russell High School and Fort Hays State University — the two regional institutions where she earned degrees.

The Deines Cultural Center is funded by the City of Russell and its nonprofit Friends organization. The building has two large gallery spaces and hosts original, juried, and invitational exhibitions as well as arts education and programming.

The Details

"Ada Niedenthal – Beyond Comfort"
August 17-October 8, 2025, at the Deines Cultural Center, 820 N. Main St. in Russell, Kansas

The closing reception for the exhibition is October 5.

The Deines Cultural Center is open noon-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Admission is free and the facility is accessible to people with physical disabilities.

Lori Brack is a writer and arts worker based in Lucas, Kansas. She is the author of three books of poems and many essays in anthologies and journals. Links to her writing and full bio are at www.loribrack.com.

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