New Hope fiber artist Barbara Moon Boertzel's first museum retrospective opened Oct. 24 at Michener Art Museum in Doylestown.

"Barbara Moon Boertzel: Listening to Time" surveys 16 works spanning more than four decades of handmade paper and direct drawing stitchery, a technique of drawing with needle and thread. The exhibition, according to Bucks County Magazine, runs through April 18, 2027.

Boertzel has spent those decades making paper, stitching cloth and binding books. She has rarely exhibited them, instead inviting people to her studio to handle the work, Urgent Matter reported.

A studio visit sparked the show. Boertzel invited the Michener's chief curator, Laura Turner Igoe, to see her work, said Abi Lua, Michener Art Museum assistant curator, who organized the exhibition. Lua told Urgent Matter that Igoe saw the intimate pieces fitting the museum's smallest gallery. The show is installed in the Bette and Nelson Pfundt Gallery.

The centerpiece is a new artist book trilogy, "I Listen to the Passage of Time." The three books took over a year to complete, Boertzel told Urgent Matter. They are Japanese handbound journals filled with stitched cloth, monoprints, photographs and tropical fiber paper Boertzel made by hand on Guam in the 1980s. Visitors can see every page on video in the gallery.

Lua said the challenge was finding a through line across Boertzel's mediums. She settled on the artist book, which combines printmaking, painting, drawing, papermaking and stitchery.

Boertzel, born in 1945, lived on Guam from 1973 to 1989. She researched Micronesian fiber arts and traveled to Japan for traditional hand papermaking study. The museum's press release calls her the first known tropical fiber papermaker in the western Pacific. She received the Territory of Guam's 1985 Governor's Award for the Arts in Crafts and later earned an MFA in fiber arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan.

Works on view range from intimate pages to large-scale textiles. "Lines of the Hand" (1994) stretches nearly five feet tall but only two and a half inches wide. "Movement in Stillness" (1993–94), the largest piece, is a hand-stitched Polish linen spanning more than five and a half feet.

The exhibition is presented by Vivian Banta and Robert Field, according to the museum.

Two free-admission Sundays remain before the program ends in December: Sunday, Nov. 8 and Dec. 13, noon to 5 p.m. The free days, supported by Art Bridges Foundation, include access to the Boertzel show and all exhibitions on view.

Boertzel said she will bring pieces for smaller groups to handle at two programs on Feb. 10 and March 10, 2027. Tickets are $10 for members and $22 for non-members.

Upcoming events at Michener Art Museum:

  • Free Second Sunday: Sunday, Nov. 8, noon–5 p.m.
  • Free Second Sunday: Dec. 13, noon–5 p.m.
  • Beyond Words Book Club (Life After Life by Kate Atkinson): Jan. 28, 2027, 1–2:30 p.m. (daytime) and Feb. 11, 2027, 6:30–8 p.m. (evening). $10 members, $22 non-members.
  • Barbara Moon Boertzel: My Artistic Journey: Feb. 10, 2027, 1–2 p.m. $10 members, $22 non-members.
  • Barbara Moon Boertzel: Explorations in Papermaking: March 10, 2027, 1–2 p.m. $10 members, $22 non-members.

The museum is open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m., at 138 South Pine St. in Doylestown.