Remembering Elaine M. Polvinen

The Burchfield Penney Art Center sadly announces that artist and educator Elaine M. Polvinen died on October 13, 2015. As Professor in the Department of Fashion and Textile Technology at SUNY Buffalo State, she trained students in how to design, print, weave and use 3-D mapping software to produce textiles, as well as how to envision textiles as unique fashion.

A Buffalo State College alumna, receiving her Bachelor of Science degree in 1973, Polvinen earned her M.F.A. at the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1989. In the years that followed, she did further field studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s College of Art & Design in New York; North Carolina State University College of Textiles in Raleigh; ACTS Testing Lab in Hong Kong; and Lectra Modaris Garment Pattern Design in New York, to name a few. In 1997, she had a six-week paid faculty internship at Info Design in New York to help develop and coordinate the “Partnership with Education Program” for the U.S., develop a prototype new company Web site, and get training on new software.

Elaine Polvinen was well published on technology and textile design, and her own silk designs have been exhibited as far away as Taegu, Korea and Taipei, Taiwan in the Republic of China. Her international work benefitted the college with display of Inspirational Chinese Designs: East and West Interpretations at what was then called Upton Gallery (now the Czurles-Nelson Gallery).

Many Western New Yorkers will remember Ms. Polvinen’s fashion shows, Runway 1.0 through 6.0, the first being held at the new Burchfield Penney Art Center museum building in 2009. In the early days of “Second Life,” Polvinen created a presence for the college that students and faculty/staff contributed to developing.
The Burchfield Penney has exhibited her work in thematic exhibitions, and owns an early example of her computer-designed weaving series “Woman Inside and Outside,” called Spirituality: Woman Inside Her Soul. Her intent was to present an iconic image that represented all women throughout the history of art, from primordial images to contemporary concepts of spiritual aura. The weaving is on loan to CyberQuad in Butler Library.