Nava Lubelski’s complex work appears in major shows in New York and Toronto this fall. In her Asheville studio, she’s perfecting the art of “imperfectionism.”

by Ursula Gullow . portrait by Anthony Bellemare

Imperfectionism. It’s the term Nava Lubelski has coined to describe her highly intricate mixed media artwork. “It’s kind of my joke with myself,” says the 41-year-old native New Yorker. “I think about it as being a diligent care and attention to achieving something that is entirely flawed.”

Lubelski, whose family is Eastern European, has exhibited work all over the globe, from New York City to Mexico to Sweden. While she may use fundamental crafting methods like stitching and lace making, she makes it clear that she is not a craft artist. “Craft sticks to a plan. It finishes what it set out to do—and that is what’s valued about it. I’m pretty much doing the opposite of that,” she says.

Her work is labor-intensive, to say the least. Thousands of stitches, most by hand, cover her “paintings” on canvas. Her paper sculptures require thousands of rolled papers. “I bring a whole lot of compulsion and control freakishness to create something that’s completely imperfect,” she says.

Incorporating traditional craft methods like stitching are big in the art world now, with artists like Tracey Emin and sites like Etsy.com popularizing the trend. But Lubelski began making her stitched pieces 12 years ago when galleries were not used to seeing stitching on canvas. Gallery owners were stumped. “They thought it was out of left field,” she says. Often her works were mistaken for abstract paintings—ironic, since mid-century abstract expressionism was dominated by male artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Koonig. Stitching, on the other hand, is generally seen as women’s work.

Two years ago, the Museum of Art and Design in New York City held an exhibit called Prick: Extreme Embroidery, which secured sewing’s place as a viable medium in the art world, and two of Lubelski’s pieces were included in the exhibit. Last year Lubleski’s paper sculpture was included in the museum’s Slash: Paper Under the Knife exhibit, and her embroidered linen napkins are currently on display in the Manhattan museum’s Eat Drink Art Design show.

Lubelski stumbled onto the idea of stitched paintings after she noticed a stain on her canvas and “repaired” it by sewing over it. From there, holes in her canvases became lace and knotted-thread weavings. She often plays with the concepts of demolition and regeneration. “We all have both tendencies,” she says. “The desire to be impulsive, make a mess and destroy things, and the desire to repair, to order, to make beautiful, to correct.”

Born and raised in SoHo in Manhattan, Lubelski was always interested in the arts. In 2004, she published The Starving Artist’s Way—a take on The Artist’s Way, the best-selling book by Julia Cameron. Lubelski’s version offers offbeat do-it-yourself projects and colorful snippets of art history.

In 2008, Lubelski received a substantial grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and last month she was awarded a $10,000 artist fellowship award from the North Carolina Arts Council. In November, she has a solo exhibit of paintings at a museum in Toronto, Canada, and a collection of her glove forms will show in Australia in 2011. North Carolinians will finally have an opportunity to see her work in March 2011, at Artspace in Raleigh. She’ll be part of a group show with other local women at the Asheville School in January 2011.

Lubelski’s success is in part due to her savvy business side. She says she spends about a quarter of her time photographing her work, updating her website, writing proposals and grant applications. She admits it’s something she’s had to work at, after being raised by left-leaning artist types who generally frowned upon business and marketing. “The idea [was] that everything [was] supposed to feel good and that art is just about art,” says Lubelski. “It took me a long time to realize that the art world wasn’t going to just come to me.”

To see more of Lubelski’s work, check out www.navalubelski.com.