CV

Roberta Bell

Textile-focused Mixed Media Artist

Where to find my work:
Centennial Art Center, Nashville, TN
Arrowmont Gallery, 110 S Gay Street, Knoxville, TN
The Arts Center of Cannon County, Woodbury, TN
Glassville Artist Collective, 100 Taylor St, Ste c-13, Nashville, TN

Juried Shows: 
“Reflection”, Tennessee Craft Member Exhibition, Pryor Gallery, Columbia, TN, Oct 27-Dec 19, 2025 (Regional)

Multiple pieces, The Art of Craft, Centennial Art Center, Nashville, TN, Aug 8 -Sept 18, 2025 (Local)

“Rising from a Land of Fire and Smoke”, Figment: A Juried National Exhibition of Fanciful, Whimsical and Surreal Artworks, July 5 – August 2, 2025, d’Art Center, Norfolk, VA (National)

“Reflection”, Threading the Needle: National Art Quilt Exhibition, November 7 – December 12, 2024, Webber Gallery, College of Central Florida (National)

“Rising from a Land of Fire and Smoke”, Best of Tennessee Craft, 2024 Biennial, October 14-December 13, 2024, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, TN (State)

“Nammu, Goddess of the Primeval Seas“, Fantastical, August 17, 2024 – September 21, 2024, South Haven Center for the Arts, South Haven, MI (International)

Multiple pieces, The Art of Craft, Centennial Art Center, Nashville, TN, August 9-Sept 18, 2024 (Local)

“Nammu, Goddess of the Primeval Seas”, 47th Mid-States Craft Exhibition, November 24, 2023 – March 17, 2024, Evansville Museum, Evansville, IN (Regional)

“Nammu, Goddess of the Primeval Seas”, Fearlessly and Wonderfully Created Fine Art Show, April 20-22, 2023, Nashville, TN (Regional)

“Nammu, Goddess of the Primeval Seas”, Wonderland Exhibit, Trolley Barn Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY, Sept 15-Oct 31, 2022 (International)

“Nammu, Goddess of the Primeval Seas”, Best of Tennessee Craft Exhibit, Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, TN, Oct 29, 2021-Feb 20, 2022 (State)

Multiple pieces, The Art of Craft, Centennial Art Center, Nashville, TN, Oct 12-Nov 18, 2020 (Local)

Multiple pieces, The Art of Craft, Centennial Art Center, Nashville, TN, Aug 16-Sept 23, 2019 (Local)

Solo Shows:
John P. Holt Brentwood Library, July 1-30, 2024

Invited Talks: 
Trolley Barn Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY, Artist Talk, October 1, 2022.

Curated Group Shows: 
TN Craft Mid-State Member Showcase, Brentwood Public Library, Nashville, TN, July 2022 
TN Craft Mid-State Member Showcase, Green Hills Public Library, Nashville, TN, May 2019
Pop-up Art Show, Chris Bubany & Friends Gallery, Tucson, AZ, Feb & Mar 2019 

Teaching and Demonstrations: 
Ocean-Themed Landscape Design Workshop, The Arts Center of Cannon County, Woodbury, TN, Sept 17-19, 2026
White Oak Craft Fair (Demonstration), Woodbury, TN, September 11-12, 2026
Textile Landscape Design Workshop, The Arts Center of Cannon County, Woodbury, TN, April 4 & 11, 2026
White Oak Craft Fair (Demonstration), Woodbury, TN, September 13-14, 2025
Textile Landscape Design Workshop, Centennial Art Center, Nashville, TN, August 22-23, 2025

Art/Craft Fairs: 
Open Studio Art Crawl, Nashville, TN, December 13-14, 2025
Monthly Nightly Market, 100 Taylor Arts Collective, Nashville, TN, Third Saturday, 4-9pm, 2025 (Juried)
Tennessee Craft Fair, Nashville, TN, October 10-12, 2025 (Mentor for emerging makers) (Juried)
NGC Flower Show, Cheekwood Estate & Garden, September 24, 2024
Tennessee Craft Fair, Nashville, TN, October 11-13, 2024 (emerging makers) (Juried)
Crafting Change, Virgin Hotel, Nashville, TN, October 25, 2024
Open Studio Art Crawl, Nashville, TN, December 14-15, 2024
Open Studio Art Crawl, Nashville, TN, December 9-10, 2023
Open Studio Art Crawl, Nashville, TN, December 10-11, 2022
Tennessee Craft Fair, Nashville, TN, October 7-9 2022 (mentor for emerging artists) (Juried) (Family emergency, was unable to attend)
Tennessee Craft Fair, Nashville, TN, May 6-8, 2022 (mentor for emerging artists) (Juried)
Open Studio Art Crawl, Nashville, TN, December 11-12, 2021
Art on the Westside, Nashville, TN, October 2021 (Juried)
Tennessee Craft Fair, Nashville, TN, October 2020-January 2021 (virtual, emerging artist) (Juried)
Handmade Holiday Crawl, Nashville, TN, December 2019 
Handmade Nashville, Nashville, TN, November 2018

Press, Media:
Web: Mainstreet Nashville
October 29, 2021: “Best of Tennessee’s craft work featured in new exhibit”
“In a vibrant triptych by Nashville artist Roberta Bell, a swirling ocean of thread and embellishment bustles around Nammu, goddess of the primeval seas, as she stands guard over a world of oceanic creatures. Bell used found materials to create a commentary on climate change and the impact of human activity on the natural world.”

Print: The Green Hill News
October 21, 2020: “Metro Parks Centennial Art Center Gallery presents annual Art of Craft exhibit”
“Roberta Bell creates visual vignettes with fantastical fabric figures in elaborate textile backdrops. Her figures portray various narratives and adventures and evoke the viewer’s imagination to consider the world within the frame…and beyond.”

Television: Talk of the Town – Nashville, TN
October 5, 2020: Two works of art displayed and discussed as part of TV episode covering the Tennessee Craft Fall Fair

Artist Statement: 
My work explores the intersection of storytelling, materiality, and place through layered and dimensional textile assemblage. Using fabric, thread, found objects, and hand-built elements, I construct immersive scenes that exist somewhere between memory, myth, and environment.

I am drawn to the tactile and expressive qualities of fiber. Stitching, fraying, and layering become both process and language – ways of building dimensional surfaces that hold time, texture, and transformation. Each piece evolves intuitively, guided as much by the materials themselves as by an underlying narrative impulse.

Many of my works take the form of framed or window-like compositions, inviting the viewer to look into contained worlds. These spaces often reference natural environments (e.g., oceans, deserts, or imagined landscapes) where flora, fauna, and symbolic figures coexist. The boundaries between reality and invention are intentionally porous, allowing each scene to function as both a place and a story.

I am interested in how materials carry meaning: how fabric can suggest skin, terrain, or memory; how thread can map movement or connection; how found elements can anchor a work in lived experience. Through this layering, I aim to create pieces that feel at once intimate and expansive, i.e., objects that reward close looking while evoking a larger, unfolding narrative.

Ultimately, my work invites viewers to slow down, to notice detail, and to enter these constructed environments as participants in their own acts of interpretation.

Volunteer Activities:
Abe’s Garden Art Club, co-teacher, 2023-current
Tennessee Craft State Board Subcommittee on Professional Development, 2024-current
Tennessee Craft Fair volunteer, Spring 2026, Spring 2025, Spring 2024; Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2018 
Tennessee Craft Midstate Board and Midstate Chapter Representative to Tennessee Craft State Board, 2020-2021
Tennessee Craft Midstate, Event Committee Member, 2020 
Tennessee Craft Midstate, Handmade Holiday Crawl Committee, 2019