Gayle Fraas and Duncan Slade have pioneered dye painting with fiber-reactive dyes on cotton fabric. Wife and husband, as well as artist team, their collaboration has continued for over 30 years.  According to Gayle, “Each piece is painted by either one of us.  But it is the visual content—the  intent and meaning—of the work that we share.”  As a couple, they have been granted numerous commissions for large-scale murals.

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Gayle Fraas and Duncan Slade have pioneered dye painting with fiber-reactive dyes on cotton fabric. Wife and husband, as well as artist team, their collaboration has continued for over 30 years.  According to Gayle, “Each piece is painted by either one of us.  But it is the visual content—the  intent and meaning—of the work that we share.”  As a couple, they have been granted numerous commissions for large-scale murals.
     Fraas-Slade's work has been exhibited broadly, including such outstanding venues as:

• "The Walsh Collection,"UniversityofKentucky ArtMuseum,Lexington,KY, 2001.
• "Fraas-Slade," Works Gallery,Philadelphia,PA.
• "Haystack: Pivotal Transformations," Center forMaineContemporary Art,Rockport,ME, 2001.
• "Fabric and Fiber",PortlandMuseumofArt,Portland,ME, 1999.
• "Frontiers: The Art Quilts of Gayle Fraas and Duncan Slade," (retrospective), 1998.
• "Full Deck Art Quilts," Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1995-2000.
• "The Art Quilt",Los AngelesMunicipalArtGallery, Los Angeles, CA, 1986-1989.
• "The New American Quilt," American Crafts Museum, New York, NY, 1976-1979.

Fraas-Slade works are found in many corporate and public collections including the PeabodyEssexMuseum, the American Crafts Museum, John Nuveen and Company, Inc., Fidelity Management and Research, University of Nebraska International Quilt Study Center, and the Departments of Marine Resources and Motor Vehicles in Maine, among others.
     Fraas and Slade have won many honors including a National Endowment for the Arts/New England Foundation for the Arts fellowship in 1995 and a residency at the Leighton Artists Colony,Banff Center,Alberta,Canada. In addition, they received one of the first Maine Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship awards during the program's inaugural year in 1988/89.

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