It Is What It Is | Linda McConaughy

Betty and Howard Taylor Main Gallery

It Is What It Is by Linda McConaughy gathers four interrelated bodies of work utilizing multiple mediums including geometric abstract paintings, quilts sewn from reclaimed single-use plastic bags, and layered mixed-media pieces that explore the ways internal dialogue shapes perception, identity, and the material world. Through language, repetition, and tactile construction, the works reveal how self-understanding is formed—and often constrained—by habitual thought, cultural messages, and the aesthetics of reassurance. Across all four series, pattern serves as a visual and conceptual metaphor—repetition as reflection, form as self-examination.  

___________________________

It Is What It Is explores how inner dialogue shapes perception, identity, and the materials of everyday life. Across mixed media, quilting, and painting, the works reveal how self-understanding is pieced together—and often complicated—by cultural messages, domestic labor, and the language of inner dialogue.

Layered mixed-media works feature phrases cut into frosted surfaces—“I AM NOT WHO I THOUGHT I WAS”, “NOTHING TO SEE HERE.” Beneath the text, game boards and mirrored forms invite viewers to look through and around language, catching glimpses of themselves as they read. These works push back against the glossy optimism of mass-produced “word art,” replacing it with honest introspection.

Quilts hand-sewn from reclaimed plastic bags transform disposable materials into enduring, time-intensive craft, asking what is valued or discarded in women’s work. The installation You Made Your Bed continues this reflection: forty quilts, stacked high on a simple bed, evoke both comfort and accumulation. Because only the quilt edges are visible, a series of small 4″ x 5″ collage images accompanies the installation—an intimate index revealing what lies beneath the surface.

Recent paintings extend these themes through abstraction. Drawing from quilt geometry and fragments of Dale Carnegie’s How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, they transform phrases of self-help into quiet confessions.

Across all four series, repetition and pattern mirror the loops of thought and habit. The works invite looking as a form of self-questioning—an inquiry into how we see, speak, and believe.

___________________________

Linda McConaughy is a visual artist and quilt maker based in the Cleveland, Ohio area. After a long career as an art educator and art program supervisor in Baltimore, Maryland, she returned to Northeast Ohio to focus on her studio practice. Her work reflects a desire to attend to and decode the dialogue between place and time, exploring the relationships that emerge between the constructed and the natural world.

Working across recycled materials, wood, paint, collage, quilt making, and found objects, McConaughy creates visual records of unscripted exchanges between perception and environment. Her quilts often merge contemporary and traditional forms, drawing on patterns of repetition and reconstruction as metaphors for personal and cultural introspection. Her work has been exhibited locally at The Artist Archives of the Western Reserve and The Morgan Conservatory, as well as in juried exhibitions across the United States.