Ally Maurer is a Chicago-based, interdisciplinary artist originally from Long Island, New York. She recently earned her BFA in Studio from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Spring of 2025. Her work explores the relationship between herself, her home, and the nature she is surrounded by. She strives to comfort her audience through the skilled handwork and care she puts into each work she creates. Exploring different disciplines in her past is what brought Ally to currently work on large-scale quilts and soft sculpture installations. The process behind her fiber-based works is self-healing and driven by her self-expression and nostalgia for her lived experiences. She becomes intimate with her materials and processes through the use of recycled materials, old clothes, and scrap fabric. Her time-intensive textile pieces travel with her and experience life through her hands and her travels throughout the city of Chicago and across the country.

The connection I have to my surroundings is what drives me to work with hands-on fiber techniques. The subject matter and the materials used in my artwork are influenced most by my desire to explore and understand myself and my past. I strive for my audience to understand the interrelation between tedious fiber techniques and my experiences growing up, finding myself, and my place in the world.

I convey how I adjust to my growing pains using fiber techniques like crocheting, embroidery, felting, and sewing. I hold these skills near and dear to my heart as they are time-consuming and involve much care and effort. Since moving out of my childhood home, I have been grieving the loss of my childhood dog, Luke, and experiencing homesickness. My textile works tell the story of all the love I hold for Luke, Long Island, and my childhood. I embroider words and imagery that remind me of home, like the number 31, my front door, a lighthouse, and parts of my dog. I work to reiterate these feelings through each piece I create. Revisiting my nostalgia forces me to work through these emotions, allowing me to grow, change, and build myself my own home.

The intimacy with my materials and processes is developed through the use of recycled materials, old clothes, and scrap fabric that myself and loved ones have interacted with. I want to feel the warmth and love of my experience through functional quilts that can also act as hanging artwork.