— After years of struggle, Monroe Township fiber artist Sandy Shelenberger is letting go and going with the flow.

Shelenberger’s emotion-filled quilts and, more recently her encaustics, have been characterized by the inner struggles inherent to moving through mid-life. From graffiti to torsos, from a bull’s-eye to a Mexican sunrise, Shelenberger’s works document a night journey that is finally pulling into the station for the morning commute.

“I think it’s a happier time for me,” Shelenberger said as she finished hanging her new exhibit at the Ashtabula Arts Center last week. “It reflects where I’m at emotionally. I’m in a good place in my life. I have a good balance between my work and my art.”

Shelenberger is a part-time nurse, but for the past 25 years she’s also been developing her skills as a fiber artist and designer. Her work has been exhibited in the United States, the Czech Republic and France. She received a Juror’s Award of Merit in the “Quilt National 2005.”

Photographs of her quilts have been published in “Contemporary Quilts 2005” by Lark Books and “Uncommon Threads: Ohio’s Art Quilt Revolution” by Gayle Pritchard. Most recently, one of her quilts was selected for “500 Art Quilts: An Inspiring Collection of Contemporary Work,” published by Lark Books this spring. Shelenberger’s “Gray Matter” quilt was selected from more than 2,000 entries for the book.

Throughout July, 18 of her quilts and 31 of her framed “encaustics” and scrolls are exhibited at the Ashtabula Arts Center, 2928 W. 13th. An artist’s reception is 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday. On Saturday, she will present a gallery talk at 10 a.m.

The solo exhibit is entitled “Raw: Textiles and Encaustics.”

The quilts span years of both self-discovery and exploration of the art form.

“I started quilting more as a technical thing, to learn a technique,” Shelenberger says. “My internal journey has been reflected in my pieces.”

When Shelenberger exhibited at the Arts Center six years ago, it was bold graffiti — jumbled poetry and thoughts expressed on textile panels — that drew visitors into her unsettling world of midlife. In this exhibit, the colors, textures and flowing stitches create more serene and orderly images of where Shelenberger is at in life.

Several of these quilts are from her “Bull’s-eye” series, which originated with a spate of anger and frustration over a family situation.

“I was angry, so instead of just being angry, I went into the studio,” she said. “I liked what was happening, and I wasn’t angry any more.”

Shelenberger discovered the magic of going with the flow.

“It’s movement, it’s the energy and not over thinking the process,” Shelenberger says.

Shelenberger has done seven quilts in the “Bull’s-eye” series, which progressively take on a calmer, more orderly look. Several of the swirling pieces are intersected by single vertical and horizontal strips of cloth suggestive of ribbon wrapping up a package of energy and emotion.

Her most recent entry, “Tequila Sunrise,” was completed the day before she hung the show. It’s a bright, positive quilt in stark contrast to her Black and Blue and Torso series quilts. It was inspired by a 25th wedding anniversary trip to Mexico and the sights she saw there.

“I think these days it’s more about my mood and wanting to work with colors and feeling playful,” Shelenberger says of her most recent body of works.

Mixed in with the quilts are framed encaustics, hot-wax paintings in which the colors are burned into the paper or fabric. A kit introduced her to the technique, which Shelenberger studied formally in a four-day class held in New York.

“I wanted to produce a body of work and I didn’t want another process like quilting,” Shelenberger says, explaining what drew her to the medium. “It’s a little more instant gratification, whereas the quilting is more labor intensive.”

Three of her encaustics were done as scrolls. Shelenberger says the scrolls were created in sections, so did not see the entire work as it progressed, perhaps a metaphor for life itself.

Shelenberger works out of a studio that her husband, Jeff, and other family members built onto the back of their home. She uses a variety of techniques to produce the patterns and colors on her fabric, including paint, air brushing and screen printing.

The quilting is done free-arm on a machine; Shelenberger says that, these days, her quilting also reflects the flowing, rambling form of her mood and is in contrast to the blocky, more structured patterns used on Black and Blue and some of her other early work.

Concurrent with her exhibit, the artist has launched a new Web site, sandyshelenberger.com.