THE SCULPTED FIBER: West Coast Fiber Artists

THE SCULPTED FIBER:
West Coast Fiber Artists
Janice Arnold, The Palace Yurt
Docent Guide
Oct. 10 –Nov. 29, 2015
The Sculpted Fiber: West Coast Fiber Artists brings together contemporary artists of different
ages and artistic practices from California, Oregon and Washington. Several are connected
through the California College of the Arts Textiles program, while others show at the same
galleries. The common theme is that each of the artists explores fiber and textiles in an
experimental manner, sometimes merging science with art, or referencing historic or traditional
art forms, or even using pedestrian or ordinary fibrous materials in new ways.
Although the term “fiber art” came into use by curators following WW II, artists began to look
at fiber as a serious sculptural medium only beginning in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 70s,
“needlework” was reclaimed by Feminist practice as a “high” art form, taking skills and
craftwork historically associated with women and celebrating not only the making of work, but
also the merger of craft and art. Since then, fiber and textile work has taken various directions
including conceptual art influenced by postmodern ideas, DIY work done by a wide range of
“crafters”, and high fashion and industrial design.
There are various directions the artists of The Sculpted Fiber have taken with their practices.
Several incorporate photography such as Lia Cook, Richard Bassett and Lisa Occhipinti. Both
Esther Traugot and Carole Beadle refer to nature and/ or incorporate natural materials into
their work. Lauren DiCioccio and Gertrud Parker work with fashion and domestic objects; and
Sabine Reckewell, May Wilson, and Janice Arnold create architectural and sculptural forms.
What is evident in all of the works is a tactual quality that comes from the use of the fibrous or
textile materials and also from the incorporation of handwork like embroidery or crochet.
This exhibition was curated by the Art Museum of Sonoma County as part of our expanded
contemporary arts programming. Many thanks to Gertrud Parker and other art patrons,
including Jack Stuppin and an anonymous donor, who sponsored the Museum’s art exhibitions
in 2015.
Esther Traugot
Esther Traugot obscures natural objects within hand-crocheted coverings, in a curious and
aesthetically intriguing attempt to preserve nature and prevent its decay. She refers to these
coverings as ‘bandages’ and ‘cozies’. Her work examines not only ideas of time and
decomposition, but also of labor, as every piece is painstakingly crafted by the artist’s own
hand. “I create works that play between seeing oneself as an intrinsic part of the natural
landscape, as well as an observer of it,” she says. By immersing herself in physical interactions
with these objects, she imbues them with a new sense of humanity and bridges the gap
between natural and artificial.
Artist Statement:
Through the media of painting, sculpture and installation, my work investigates a personal
connection with the natural world. This interdisciplinary approach allows me to create works
that play between seeing oneself as an intrinsic part of the natural landscape, as well as an
observer of it.
I cover objects of nature with crocheted threads in an attempt to “prop up” or “put back” what
has been abandoned, broken. As bandage or cozy, these support structures investigate the
relationship between nurturing and controlling nature. The meticulous act of crocheting mimics
the instinct to nurture and protect what is viable, what is becoming precious. As in gilding,
these false “skins” imbue the objects with an assumed desirability or value; the wrapping
becomes an act of veneration. Although futile in its attempt at archiving and preservation, it
suggests optimism. My interest in the objects extends from the notion of landscape and how
we not only experience, but also negotiate with the natural world. Do we feel warm and fuzzy,
or do we distance ourselves? How do we “care” for that which we depend upon?
Excerpts from interview with Esther Traugot (http://inthemake.com/esther-traugot/):
Esther lives, works, and raises her children out of a small apartment in Sebastopol, and because
her space is very limited she uses the living room as her studio, but it still functions as a family
room, too. Over the years, we have visited many artists that work out of their homes, often
converting rooms or garages or basements into studios, or occasionally, like Esther, they simply
have to ask their space to do double duty. And to me, this says a lot about their commitment,
their resourcefulness, and their identity as artists.
Esther works within the mediums of painting, sculpture and installation to investigate our
personal connections with the natural world. In much of her work, she covers objects of nature
with crocheted threads, always in an ochre gold color, in an attempt to “prop up” or “put back”
what has been abandoned or damaged. These crocheted wrappings are meticulous
interventions… like a bandage or armor … lending protection and preciousness to these objects,
but that also express an element of control.
As I sat on her couch, in the middle of her home, talking to her about her work, and as she
pulled out beautiful seed pods, dead insects, twigs, and eggs that she has found and collected
and laid them out on her table for us to examine, I couldn’t help thinking how small, how cozy,
how dear her reality is. Seeing these tiny natural forms up close was a moving experience— the
delicate fuzz on a bee’s body, the smooth, polished curve of an egg’s shell, the iridescent gleam
of a butterfly’s wing… it all seemed so perfect, so humble and broken, so delicate and
diminutive, and yet so frightfully grand, too. I was dazzled. Esther says, “I collect little pieces of
nature that I find for their shape and color, or particular uniqueness. In wrapping them I find a
correlation to the caring and intention of making them important and worthy of protection in
some way…”
To be honest, Esther’s work makes my heart break a little— there is so much tenderness in it. It
elicits memories of childhood, of how I played out in the woods alone with the family dog in
tow, wandering about observing and gathering, letting my imagination breathe itty bitty secret
lives into each flower, stone, or beetle I encountered…setting my world ablaze with wonder
one tiny little finding at a time.
How would you describe your subject matter or the content of your work?
I crochet, wrap skins around natural forms with gold-colored threads, exploring the instinct to
nurture and protect them. I am interested in the ways that the stitching accentuates their
forms as well as how they create casings that make sense to how the objects might need to be
nurtured.
What mediums do you work with?
In my process, I use drawing, photography, found natural objects, fabric dyes, yarns and
threads, construction materials.
Your crocheted thread coverings in your installation work is always the same almost gold/ochre
color. Why?
I have settled on this color for now because of its vibrancy, warmth, and association with gold
in gilding. It speaks to making them more precious.
I read that you grew up in a rural landscape, amongst a community that was in pursuit of
utopian ideals— how has this influenced your work, both conceptually and aesthetically?
It instilled in me a sense of caring and responsibility for our natural environment. My parents
were part of the Back to The Land movement in the 70s. From the largest mountain to the
smallest bug, they are all important. As a child, I developed a particular way of relating to the
world around me, where I wouldn’t step on an ice-puddle, or newly fallen snow, so I wouldn’t
disturb what was there. I wouldn’t step on ants, or kill a wasp that found its way into my house,
but catch it in a jar to take outside. My father was a vegetable farmer and I would help him in
the greenhouse and in the fields planting, and in driving the horses and cart. I am still interested
in agriculture today, and am drawn to being in nature. I notice, even in urban areas, the plants
and shape of land, how we have constructed living spaces within what is still nature. I collect
little pieces of nature that I find for their shape and color, or particular uniqueness. In wrapping
them I find a correlation to the caring and intention of making them important and worthy of
protection in some way, as well as their sculptural and formal qualities. I think about the idea of
nature: sentimental vs. commodity, about what it means to nurture and protect, and when that
protection becomes control.
What are you presently inspired by— are there particular things you are reading, listening to or
looking at to fuel your work?
I find that I don’t have to look far to find good material to read and work with. I find it on my
doorstep, at the farmers’ market, in the food I eat, the air I breathe. I guess I look at my direct
life and what I find in it that gets me to think about nature and the modern world. I am reading
Michael Pollen’s book, The Botany of Desire. I look at seed catalogues, and the National
Heirloom Exposition.
What does having a physical space to make art in mean for your process, and how do you make
your space work for you?
I don’t have a separate studio. I work from my living room at home. I have a family. I live and
work around my art. Using yarns and crocheting lends itself well to this environment, vs.
painting materials. I can work for any length of time and put it down at a moment’s notice. I
have also brought crochet work with me to my kids’ doctor appointments, lessons, etc.
Is there something you are currently working on, or are excited about starting that you can tell
us about?
I have three projects in focus:
The Arboretum Seed project — I am currently starting a large seed project for an exhibit at Cal
State Fullerton, where I collect seeds from their campus arboretum, where they focus on
conservation of special, heirloom, native varieties from all over the world. I will be researching
the seed varieties and special qualities of their plants.
I am very excited about my next big project working with dead honeybees. I will be negotiating
with and gathering from local apiaries a group of deceased bees and wrapping each in their
own little blanket. This piece is promised for an exhibition, called Extinction, in Sao Paulo, Brazil
in early 2015.
Another is about my avocado pits. Over the past couple years I have saved and dried about 200
avocado pits that I will be crocheting wrappings for. My intention is to make a large quantity of
them to display next to each other, perhaps in one very long row, to articulate variation in size
and shape in a single variety.
Do you see your work as relating to any current movement or direction in visual art or culture?
Which other artists might your work be in conversation with?
I think my work relates to and is in conversation with Land and Environmental art and
Feminism.
And more specifically, these artists:
Annette Messager’s knitted birds.
Liza Lou’s beadwork.
Wolfgang Laib pollen collecting.
And, the Crochet Coral Reef Project.
How do you navigate the art world?
I am currently on the path of the gallery exhibition. I choose it, but I think it chose me as well,
because most of my exhibitions have come from offers and word of mouth referrals. I find that
by following up on, negotiating with venues and talking about my work all lead to more
opportunities and experience. Plus, I find a little bit of just allowing the alchemy to happen
brings amazing opportunities that I hadn’t imagined for myself. I used to be more stressed
about how I was going to make it all work, which direction I would go, etc.
Do you have a motto?
Probably it would be that I am interested in a “contemporary naturalism.” I don’t think that the
conversation around “nature” is outdated. Now more than ever the subject of nature is part of
our social dialogue, with global warming, conservation, extinction, etc. In art, it is no less
worthy, only evolving.
www.esthertraugot.com
Notes:
Esther Traugot’s work with the wasps is a way to reanimate them (from death), as also a means
to try to protect them. She encountered these wasps on the ground when someone had
sprayed a nest, and was instantly drawn and repelled by them. She sees her work as the dialog
between nurture and control of nature.
Lia Cook
Thumbnails
Copyright © 2015 Lia Cook
My practice explores the sensuality of the woven image and embodied memories of touch and
cloth.
I am interested in the threshold at which face image dissolves first into pattern, and finally into a
sensual tactile woven structure. What does this discovery and the resulting intense desire to
touch the work add to our already innate, almost automatic emotional response to seeing a
face?
My recent work explores the nature of this emotional response to woven faces in collaboration
with neuroscientists, and uses the laboratory experience both with process and tools to stimulate
new work in response to these investigations.
Su Series is the same image translated through weaving in a different way each time it is woven.
Each individual translation results in a slightly, but occasionally dramatically altered emotional
expression. This series, which I add to over and over again, allows me to experiment with both
technical translation and the resulting effect. Su Series will eventually become a wall of 80 to 100
works.
Intensity Su Data uses the same image and is the result of behavioral studies conducted with the
exhibition space itself. Participants were invited to view a large version of the woven face in one
booth and a large version of a photographic print in another, then write their emotional
responses and rate intensity and positivity of response. Positivity Su Data takes the positivity
rating and uses data visualization to weave the data back the woven image.
Lia Cook is a Professor of Art at California College of the Arts, and has taught in the Textile and
Graduate Visual Studies Programs since 1976. Recently designated Professor Emeritus. She
received her MA, University of California, Berkeley, 1973.
Artist Statement from 2012:
I work in a variety of media combining weaving with painting, photography, video and digital
technology. My current practice explores the sensuality of the woven image and the emotional
connections to memories of touch and cloth. Working in collaboration with neuroscientists, I
am investigating the nature of the emotional response to woven faces by mapping in the brain
these responses and using the laboratory experience both with process and tools to stimulate
new work in reaction to these investigations. I am interested in both the scientific study as well
as my artistic response to these unexpected sources, exploring the territory between scientific
investigation and artistic interpretation. Recently I began using DSI Diffusion Spectrum Imaging
of the brain and TrackVis software from Harvard to look at the fiber connections of
communication between parts of the brain and to integrate these fiber tracks with the actual
fiber connections that make up the woven translation of an image. In one case, I have included
in an exhibition a participatory behavioral study (voluntary). I will be collecting data for
scientific analysis at the same time as my audience is engaging directly with the work.
Statement from 2015-Lia Cook
My practice explores the sensuality of the woven image and embodied memories of touch
and cloth.
I am interested in the threshold at which face image dissolves first into pattern and finally
into a sensual tactile woven structure. What does this discovery and the resulting intense
desire to touch the work add to our already innate, almost automatic emotional response to
seeing a face?
My recent work explores the nature of this emotional response to woven faces in collaboration
with neuroscientists and uses the laboratory experience both with process and tools to
stimulate new work in response to these investigations.
Both Neural Networks and Su Brain Tracts Renew use images of the neural connections
in the white matter of my brain. Neural Networks uses a photograph of myself as a child
and images of the neural “fiber tracts” which are woven back into the work. This work is a
part of a larger project using existing brain imaging of others combined with personal
interviews and childhood images.
Su Brain Tracts Renew. Image is a video still taken from an animation of the small woven
translations of the same face (Su Series) combined with the neural connections in motion.
The still is then rewoven again in a much larger scale. I often use the same image over and
over again translating though weaving in a different way each time. Each different
translation creates a slightly or sometimes dramatically different emotional affect.
The Su Brain Video is an animation based on the Su Series (above). It is a collaboration
with Chris Chafe, Stanford University, who created the music based on EEG brain signals.
Quotes
The candid intimacy of the family snapshot seems an unlikely starting point for Lia Cook’s overscale woven images, until one considers that such weaving, whatever its size, is the result of the
organization of small elements, close attention to detail and the dexterity of handwork. Just as
informal family photos are a medium of transaction and an exchange of intimate information
and shared history, cloth enfolds us into its history as we allow it to envelop us and record the
marks and creases of our presence. The source of Cook’s images is a simple camera from the
1950s, which has a link to today’s imaging technology in the same way that computers have
their origins in the manually operated Jacquard weaving looms of the early nineteenth century.
In Big beach boy Cook links these technologies, exchanging pixels for thread and focusing
closely on the bland subject matter of a tiny and apparently insignificant family photo of a baby.
On closer inspection, when we seem to be skin-to-skin with the child in an uneasy embrace, the
subject dissolves into a pointillist colour field of shimmering individual threads, allowing our
senses to take us beyond the threshold of recognition.
— Robert Bell, Curator, National Gallery of Australia, Web text for exhibition “Transformations:
The Language of Craft” 2005
The viewer is struck by the sheer physicality of her art as well as by her intellectual
engagement. Sensual and sumptuous these….. works… spur questions and concerns that bring
down the curtain on conventional notions regarding painting and privilege.
— Miles Beller, review of “Material Allusions” traveling exhibition, in Artweek Magazine.
Absorption and inclusion are pervasive strategies in Cooks work, operating at almost every
level: formally, in her constant exploration of new techniques; emotionally in the way she
stimulates the sense of touch through the eyes; and intellectually in the multiple reference to
different art histories. Her work reminds us that in English the phrase “to weave together “
means “to integrate.
— Meridith Tromble, essay for the Flintridge Foundation Awards forVisual Artists 1999/2000
catalogue.
Notes:
The two newer woven pieces of Lia Cook’s work is of herself as a young child. Superimposed
over the photo are the images of fiber tracts found in the brain. She is fascinated by the idea of
using the same image and repeating it in multiple woven pieces. She plans to make a hundred
of these woven pieces using the same image at different zoom fields, with different fiber tracts.
She finds it interesting that people’s brain activity increases when presented with the identical
photo in a tapestry versus just as a photo.
Gertrud Parker
Brought up in Austria, where the hand-craft movements of the Vienna Secession and the
Wiener Werkstätte were paramount, Gertrud Parker works in a unique sculptural form of her
own, often using gutskin (inspired by native Alaskan and Siberian Folk artists). She and her
husband Harold Parker are well known for having “acquired one of the most notable Surrealist
and craft art collections in the United States, work that frequently is reflective of Gertrud’s
activities as an artist.” Gertrud Parker’s also has close and significant ties to the San Francisco
Museum of Craft and Folk Art. She was founder, and Chair of the Board from 1982-1989 and is
currently the Honorary Chair.
Quotes:
The Ark, - July 6, 2011 by Lydia Wazowicz Pringl
"Her unusual selection- (gutskin)........ .her ingenious redefining of fiber art, and her insightful
explorations of the darker themes in human existence set her apart from other sculptors."
Marin Independent Journal, - June 23, 2011 by Paul Liberatore
“Her Art Has Guts” ....”She is quite amazing for someone of her generation, ”Winter said.
”There’s a kind of edge to her work. She’s pushed herself well beyond the traditional fiber arts
and the limits of people in her circle.... and not everyone can do that”.
Art Santa Fe Magazine, - Summer 2007 by Alex Ross
"Gallerie Haasner, of Wiesbaden, offers works by Gertrud Parker... Parker's art collides the
biological with the manufactured as well as the traditional with the transgressive...her
unsettling juxtapositions encompass the shock of the fragmentary as they communicate the
strange beauty of materials alienated from their usual surroundings.
Kleine Zeitung, - May 5, 2006 (Austria) "Artistry which goes under the Skin" (translation) by
Erwin Hirtenfelder
Wiesbadener Kurier and Badener Tagblatt (Germany) - June 9, 2006 "The Potential of the
Fibrous Membrane: Gertrud Parker's Objects of Animal Skin" by Haasner
"The Visceral Sculpture of Gertrud Parker", 2002 by Peter Selz
....Inspired by the traditional Alaskan material, Parker began working with gutskin in the late
1980s. Gutskin is a material that appears to be fragile, but it is actually highly resistant-gutsy.
Parker's inclination toward unusual materials brought her to make a sculpture of dyed skin and
colored feathers from a male duck. The piece is enigmatic, surreal work, called "Blue Markings".
It was one of three American entries in the Toyamura International Sculpture Biennale of 1999.
ARTWEEK, - September 2002 by Frank Cebulski
....Two other notable sculptures on view, American Icon and Unwritten Pages are meant to be
exhibited and viewed together.... Together these two sculptures make a political statement
about the relationship among power, performance, religion, and the holy unspoken and sacred
and scary. These are good effects and go further than mere concepts of art, aesthetics and
beauty.
Kleine Zeitung, - Klagenfurt, Austria, September 4, 2001 by Bernd Czechner
....It is an exciting encounter, which Galerie haaaauch is presenting in the exhibition series
"seemingly familiar" with Gertrud Parker.... her artstic work interwines impressions,
remembrance, experience with a "life long fascination and love for the work with different
fabrics....
Wiesbaden Kurier, - Wiesbaden, Germany, March 15, 2000 by Anne Stephan-Chlustin
....Two experiences from seemingly highly different culture-areas are building the ferment of
her work: the artisan tradition of the Wiener Werkstaette and the encounter with the Inuit and
Indian culture of her exile homeland, America....
Womans' Art Journal, - Spring/Summer 1999 by Amy Winter
Portraits GERTRUD PARKER "Sheer Artistry" ....After three decades of artistic practice....Parker
created her first sculptural works in gutskin. ....These works are indeed paradoxical: The coarse
gutskin, to the Western mind an almost unthinkable medium, became something elegant. In all
cases the traditional artifact or entity that had served as a starting point for experiment and
improvisation was transformed into something unique.
Sentinel, - Santa Cruz, CA, March 15, 1996 by Julia Chipapella
.... gut of some sort or another plays a seminal role in this exhibition. Gertrud Parker’s work in
the main gallery makes good use of the stuff as she stretches long strips of it over steel frames
for her "Five Panels" a piece that hangs in a ghostly reverie like some ancient sails of the
Argonauts.
Coastal Post, - Bolinas, CA, February 22, l988 by Jeff Greer
....Parker’s sculptures are airy, flexible membranes enclosing space and delightful mysteries...Parker’s fiber paintings recall primitive art, but vibrate with very sophisticated mastery of
texture and luminous color.
Janice Arnold
Janice Arnold has made it her life to know and understand Felt. She has researched and worked
with nomadic tribes of Central Asia and Mongolia and studied the high tech world of industrial
felt. Arnold approaches her art and projects with intellectual sensibility and an open minded
design sense. These skills combine to offer an unparalleled perspective.
JA is equally comfortable as a collaborator or solo artist and is driven by quality, design,
refinement and challenge. She balances function, and practices design as a cohesive
combination of intention, working with people and elements to create harmony.
Felt is a process* and a product.
Felt is not a singular kind of fabric, rather an expanding universe of textiles, with limitless
potential.
PALACE YURT
Site specific installation
Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York City
Fashioning Felt Exhibition: March 6-Sept 7 2009
Design Objective: To pay homage to the yurt as a historic and contemporary dwelling and
grand celebratory space. To demonstrate the versatility of felt as an art form and functional
fabric. Design a system that could be easily be transported and presented in a variety of venues.
Research & Proposal
http://www.jafelt.com/gallery/yurtresearch/index.html
Process
http://www.jafelt.com/gallery/yurtprocess/index.html
Installation
http://www.jafelt.com/gallery/yurtinstall/index.html
Result
http://www.jafelt.com/gallery/yurtresult/index.html
Installation and Concept: The yurt, a tent-like, collapsible dwelling, covered with felt, has been
home to generations of Turkic-Mongolian tribes for almost 2000 years. During the reign of
Genghis Khan, yurts, utilized for their ease of mobility, enabled the royal court to accompany
their leaders on military campaigns.
A Palace Yurt has been defined in the traditional Mongolian culture as a lavishly decorated Yurt,
elaborate in ornamentation and design. It has also been referred to as a castle, a royal tent, and
a palace abroad. It was known to be a place of grandeur and celebration, “as a traditional
environment for all artistic activities, (song, dance, epic poetry and legend) and a majority of
ritual festivities"
Dr Batchuluun, Felt Art of the Mongols
It seemed fitting that the FELT exhibition at the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design
Museum demonstrate the link between the historical origins of Felt and contemporary Felt ARt
thought he symbolism of the yurt, synthesizing the past with the present and future of this
ancient yet modern textile.
Scope: Within the conservatory, the installation will be comprised of a fully felted ceiling, walls,
and bench coverings. The ceiling fabric and felted wall pieces will be held in place and
supported by a structural framework designed to mirror the exiting glass support system. A
transitional section at the entrance will allude to a traditional Palace Yurt canopy of the ancient
Mongols. The north doorway will serve as a short exit transition in the next room of the
exhibition.
Janice Arnold- Bio & Artist Statement 2015
NOTE: When capitalized, Felt is being used as a noun. When lowercase, it is a verb or
adjective.
Janice Arnold’s art and installations have been redefining the boundaries of handmade
FELT since 1999. The daughter of a cartographer, she learned scale as a sixth sense.
Arnold’s virtuosity is evident in the multifaceted character of her work which transfigures spaces
in ways that are both ethereal and sensuous. She creates permanent and temporary installations,
ranging from small intricately executed pieces to large elaborate environments incorporating her
handmade bespoke textiles made from raw natural fibers. The textures range from supple and
luminous to dense, resilient and complex. Her work honors an ancient nomadic tradition yet
stretches it to new places with innovation, exploration, quality and scale putting her in a league
of her own as an artist and designer. Equally comfortable as a solo artist or collaborator, Arnold
is driven by quality, design, refinement, and challenge. She cohesively balances function and
design with intention, working with raw material and natural elements to create textile art in
harmony with purpose. Her work is part of the permanent collections of Smithsonian CooperHewitt National Design Museum, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Cirque du Soleil, Wolfgang
Puck Corp, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Seattle Center Key Arena and private collections
worldwide.
Artist Statement for the Palace Yurt
A Palace Yurt has been defined in the traditional Mongolian culture as a lavishly decorated Yurt,
elaborate in ornamentation and design. It has also been referred to as a short-term castle, a royal
tent, a palace abroad, a place of grandeur and celebration. It was “the traditional environment for
all artistic activities (song, dance, epic poetry and legends) and majority of ritual festivities” ( L.
Batchuluun, Felt Art of the Mongols, 2003). I originally conceived of the Palace Yurt for the
Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s Fashioning FELT Exhibition, where it
lined the Museum’s Conservatory. It was my artistic homage to the Yurt as shelter, as a historic
and contemporary dwelling, as social practice, as an art form and grand mobile celebratory
space.
Handmade FELT has been shrouded in myth and mystery for centuries. It is a material of
contrasts, a juxtaposition of the ancient and contemporary, the humble and grand, the Janice
Arnold- Bio & Artist Statement 2015 artistic and utilitarian. I want visitors to have a sensory
encounter with Felt that harkens back to our collective nomadic roots. To create an experience
that challenges the common perceptions of Felt and yurts and in so doing synthesize the past
with the present and future.
A More General Artist Statement:
I am driven by a passion for process and the challenge to expand the boundaries of what has
existed before in handmade Felt. I strive to bring art and craft together in expression and function
that combines to create an artistic landscape of texture and color. In exploring ways to make
completely new Felt fabrics, I push the limits of scale and balance.
My inspiration comes from the natural world and collaboration with organic raw materials. I
offer homage to sheep, who have evolved over millions of years, to share with us a remarkable
fiber - wool. It is enlightening and exhilarating to let these fibers speak in the ancient and historic
process of Feltmaking. It is my artistic passion to translate this process into a modern aesthetic in
form, function and architecture.
Our world of technology and synthetic surroundings has taken us far from the natural world. We
are starved for texture, natural fibers, and irregular forms. Wool Felt connects us with our natural
history and nomadic origins.
When I embarked on my first Felt project, handmade Felt was an obscure textile. By researching
nomadic feltmaking, I learned basics. To understand the historic tradition of
Felt in its sociological context, I traveled to Kyrgyzstan, where I worked with nomadic tribes
making Felt as they had been doing for over 6,000 years. This experience instilled a deep respect
for this ancient wisdom. Technologies emerge, flourish and become outdated quickly while the
humble craft of feltmaking remains constant. Through this understanding, my work has gathered
tremendous depth.
Based on knowledge of history and process, combined with technical proficiency, curiosity, and
extreme experimentation, I have developed refined, intricately executed Felt. My work evolves
with each project and collaboration. I create large and small site-specific installations and
continue my development in architectural applications, collaborative projects, and other crossdisciplinary work.
Artist’s Statement about the process:
FELT is believed to be the oldest type of fabric. It is non-woven and made predominantly from
raw wool. The principle elements of feltmaking have remained the same for thousands of years.
To create traditional Felt:
1) Raw wool fibers are layered together.
2) Hot water is applied to saturate the fibers; the moist heat opens the small naturally occurring
scales in the wool fiber.
3) Through agitation and pressure (rolling or rubbing the wool), these fibers irrevocably
entangle.
4) Repeating the agitation and pressure with hours of manipulation condenses the fibers and
shrinks them into the resulting Felt.
5) It is the entanglement and density of the fibers that give Felt its inherent strength and textures.
6) My original lay-up size in the raw state, is approximately 40% larger than the finished
Felt.
Notes:
The fabric that makes up the yurt is made by felting wool onto sheer fabrics using
traditional Mongolian techniques. Wet Wool roving is laid in, rolled like a carpet roll, and
rolled many times, sometimes by people or rolled behind a horse. Janice didn’t own a horse
so she used her car to roll the felt. A blessing is said during each step of the process, so that
a single piece of fabric will carry with it multiple blessings. The front of the yurt carries a
blessing in English, and the interior has the same blessing in Mongolian. The overhead
fabric is made of wool diamonds that are felted with lyocell fibers for shimmer. The design
was inspired by the glass ceiling at the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design
Museum’s conservatory. The diamonds get smaller towards the top, using a mathematical
formula, to give the viewer the perspective of a rising ceiling. The frame was designed and
built by an engineering firm; it is made from aluminum handrail. The sheer fabric is either
linen or silk and is ruched between the felted wool because the wool shrinks 40% and the
cotton shrinks much less. The differential shrinking becomes one of the design elements.
Sometimes the wool roving is just laid in layers before felting, and for the more defined
design elements, the wool is felted just enough to hold its shape, then cut into a design
before layering it onto the backing and felting the fibers together.
Arnold has several felt designs sewn to the museum benches; one of these pieces is needlefelted; the rest are rolled. Needle felting (punching needles up and down rapidly on wool
roving) will create very strong pieces of felt. Arnold has a commercial needle punch which
has over 700 needles to help create larger pieces of felt. It took two years to her to
complete this project. It was commissioned by the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design
Museum; this is the first venue since the yurt was displayed at the Cooper Hewitt where it
has been shown.
Janice’s father was a cartographer, and she attributes her capability of “seeing” the wide
expanses of fabric to his instruction. She also attributes the success of the Mongolians to
felt. Felt helped make dwellings mobile, lightweight and warm, and enabled the Mongolians
to move easily during warfare and when moving to new pasture.
Blessing on the Palace Yurt
At every step of the felting process, a blessing is said. There is a special blessing written in
English on the outside of the palace yurt and written in Mongolian on the inside:
Mongolian:
Om sain amgalan boltugai
Ezen Chingisiin üyees shinetgej
Ert ur`dyn zanshlaar togtooson
Erelkheg baatar arium mongol ündestnii
Erkhem saikhan ordon örgöön n` bolson
Kheregsel bolon edeer bütegsen
Khev yosoor tokhirson
Mongol shine tsagaan geriig chin`
English:
May all be calm and peaceful.
Evolving since the time of the great Chinggis Khaan
Established by ancient custom
Becoming the fine, treasured palace-yurt
Of the great and heroic Mongol nation
Each item made of fabric
In harmony with the custom
Let us bless your new white Mongol ger
Lisa Occhipinti
Artist Statement:
The first thing I wanted to be as a child was an archaeologist. The process of methodically digging
through layers of earth, in lands known and unknown, searching for clues to reveal truths about
people and the stories of their lives, captivated me.
A person is an infinite locus of overlapping stories forever forming the current version of their
identity. We are each an amalgamation of our personal histories, of the things that are imposed
upon us and the things we choose. My concerns lie in discovering how we each get to our present
state. I dig through layers to find the story that reflects what shaped a life's course. My curiosity
never wanes and I am endlessly astonished, beguiled and ignited by what I discover.
The media are words and images; the work explores identity through memory, emotion and
observance. I often excavate my own biography for a starting point to locate personas that
intrigue me: people I know, meet or read about, living or historical.
I create photographs from live photos I shoot and composite them with photographs shot of
found images. These are printed then hand-embroidered with pattern, resulting in bespoke
objects that merge technology with the handmade.
Photographs are also created for hand-bound artist books made from old hardbacks.
The object of the book allows for visual sequence as well as an intimate viewing experience.
These photographs are then produced as limited edition prints.
Written communication, an agent of the human condition, allows us to build collective identities.
Using discarded books, I construct sculptures--artifacts of language--that harness text and the
object of the book, bringing attention to their powerful quietude.
All of the work, whether narrative or objective, invites the viewer to connect by finding
something to recognize outside of themselves that they can identify with, thus limning a line
and activating the process of identity.
Notes:
Titles of the pieces in the exhibition are titles of books. The photos evoke her interpretations of
the words of the title, not necessarily the title as it relates to the book or its plot. The photos
are photoshopped and come from images that she has personally collected or photographed.
She has a library of images that she can choose from. The embroidered patterns sit on the
surface of the work, the top layer, so to speak, representing the present. The embroidery adds
intimacy to the work whereas a photo created by PhotoShop cannot. (Cynthia would add that
the embroidery brings handwork to an art piece that otherwise would be computer- or
machine-generated.
Rachel Brumer
Rachel Brumer’s creative life began as a professional modern dancer. After an additional degree
she became an interpreter for American Sign Language, and has been working as a visual artist
for the past 20 years. These two “non-verbal” career paths may seem an unlikely form of
training for a visual artist, but the ideas in the disciplines are handled in surprisingly similar
ways. Working with performance luminaries like Robert Wilson, Philip Glass, Lucinda Childs, and
Mark Morris had a profound influence on Brumer’s visual work. Her current work is fiber based,
exploring the experience of cloth as universal. We are in constant contact with cloth, whether it
is covering our bodies, used in sacred ritual, or looking at a flag. Brumer is interested in
challenging and expanding the boundaries of what has existed before in the sphere of quilt
making through the use of different materials such as installation art, mixed media,
photography, printmaking, embroidery, collage, light, and community based art. The source
material for her “Enhanced Sunspots After Galileo” series were the drawings of sunspots made
by Galileo in 1613.
“I continue to be passionate about translating ideas of life into visual representations. I want to
create work with a personal vocabulary of images that has a strong metaphoric potential for all
people.” -Rachel Brumer
Artist Statement:
I have had three nonverbal careers. My creative life began as a professional modern dancer. I
received a BFA from Mills College with an interdisciplinary degree. After an additional degree I
became an interpreter for American Sign Language, and now have been working as a visual
artist for the past 18 years. Dance may seem an unlikely form of training for the visual artist,
but ideas in the two disciplines are handled in surprisingly similar ways. Working with
performance luminaries like Robert Wilson, Philip Glass, Lucinda Childs, and Mark Morris had a
profound influence on my visual work. Sign language also looks at 3 dimensional space in
dynamic ways useful to developing a visual vocabulary.
My present work is fiber based. The experience of cloth is universal as we are in constant
contact with cloth, whether it is covering our bodies, used in sacred ritual, or looking at a
flag. That said, some of my work uses elements of installation art, mixed media, photography,
printmaking, embroidery, collage, light, and community based art. I am interested in
challenging and expanding the boundaries of what has existed before in the sphere of quilt
making.
I continue to be passionate about translating ideas of life into visual representations. I want to
create work with a personal vocabulary of images that has a strong metaphoric potential for all
people.
Excerpts from Interview with Rachel Brumer
(http://www.worldofthreadsfestival.com/artist_interviews/118-rachel-brumer-14.html)
Tell us about your work?
My present work is fibre based. The concepts and ideas I begin with are translated into 2 and 3
dimensions, from individual and discrete objects to room sized installations and pieces with
community participation. I deeply enjoy the labour of the work, whether it be dyeing fabric,
discharging that piece of fabric, overdyeing it, and then applying imagery and embroidery, or
preparing hundreds of boards for Van Dyke printing.
How did you start working in fibre?
The first piece I made was to commemorate a friend who had recently died of AIDS. It was an
art quilt with community involvement. I contacted friends of Daniel's and asked them to
contribute a piece of fabric that held meaning and memory, and I used these scraps to surround
the main body of the piece. After it was completed, the art quilt was sent around to individual
friends who kept it for as long as they liked, and then sent it on to another friend. This served as
a way for the group of people to stay in touch as well as remember Daniel.
Where did you go from there?
The thread of memorial and commemoration has been a key element through my 22 years of
making art. Some examples of the memorials and commemoration based work are: an
installation based on the life of a couple who run a dairy farm in Washington, (10,482 Days of
Dairiness), an installation based on the French Children of the Holocaust, (Cover Them), a series
of 14 quilts using epitaphs from gravestones of women buried in cemeteries in the Northwest,
(Marker Series), and Memory's Main Gate, using the book form with imagery based on family
history. Long Time Passing, I and II are quilts with flower imagery, and conceptually both pieces
are commemorating and mourning war deaths. Large Regional Still Lives was a project where I
asked friends to create still lives with personal objects that held memory or meaning. Together,
we set up a still life of these objects, and I photographed them, and then eventually made a Van
Dyke print.
What other mediums do you work in, and how does this inform your fibre work?
I work primarily in fibre, though within the medium, I use photography, (Van Dyke printing)
silkscreen, stiffening and waxing, board, drawing, rubbing, dripping, dyeing and found fibre. I
make quilts, stiffened and waxed fibre, and fibre in three dimensions.
Notes:
Rachel Brumer is interested in what is usually apparent, but is rarely noticed. This is her premise
for her work with The Night Sky and The Day Sky.
The constellations on the quilts are actually made-up and are not real constellations.
Richard Bassett
SF Chronicle article by Kenneth Baker
For the second time this season, I have to note sadly the death of a Bay Area artist on the eve of
his solo exhibition. Richard Bassett, 65, died of cancer shortly before his show at Jack Fischer's
opened two weeks ago.
No art term more specific than "drawing" or "sculpture" can evoke the variety of things Bassett
produced and presented over the years.
Glancing back more than a decade, the current selection merely hints at the forms taken by
Bassett's characteristic mix of conceptual tautness, humor, subdued social critique and
unstinting effort.
In recent years, he had begun making throw pillows - soft sculpture, if you will - decorated with
emphatically unconsoling images in masterly needlepoint: very low-tech pixelation.
Several drawings at Fischer depict magnified lines of Braille purportedly quoting 1950s gay porn
- but who can tell? Bassett's adoption of needlepoint, traditionally a form of "women's work,"
may count as a subtler but more transgressive gender offender.
In place of homilies or cheery patterns, Bassett stitched on his pillows images culled from the
Internet. His previous series comprised gun-toting malefactors - some aiming straight at the
viewer - captured by surveillance cameras.
The current show features prisoners: quadrupeds behind bars captured, most probably, by
Animal Control. The SPCA uses images such as we see in Bassett's "DSH_F_Calico" (2011) to
solicit human companionship for domestic animals that might otherwise go feral or be
euthanized.
The padlock and chain keeping "DSH_F_Calico" caged suggest Bassett's skepticism toward the
whole system of incarceration in America - not to mention the pet-product industrial complex which burns slowly in the Fischer show.
We attribute to cats and dogs an innocence - a guilelessness, anyway - that we seldom ascribe
to our own kind after infancy. The seemingly plaintive or even accusing looks that the caged
critters wear press that sort of button.
But as Bassett treats the animals' expressions, they serve mainly to remind us how uninformed
and unexamined our assumptions about animal awareness tend to be.
Bassett's thought seems to be that we are locked into sentimentality when it comes to peteligible animals and that our larger sense of justice may suffer the same weakness. He also hints
that the plight of homeless animals symbolizes a larger social failure to come to terms with our
own animality and possible means to relieve unnecessary suffering.
Please note: the needlepoint gunman is an earlier work from his Comfort Level series. The cat
and the dog are from the Options series.
Carole Beadle
Carole Beadle's groundbreaking work in the field of fiber sculpture has been exhibited
nationally and internationally. Her work is frankly confessional, illustrating and interpreting the
ongoing moments of fragility in life.
Most recently, Beadle participated in two artist-in-residences in France, accompanied by three
major exhibitions. She studied in Swedish Lapland with the Scandinavian Seminar for Cultural
Studies and was a Fulbright Scholar to Norway.
Professor Emeritus, Textiles, California College of Arts
Artist Statement:
The personal environment reflects the global environment. My work is an interpretation of an
order that mirrors the moments in an on going process---the fragility of life and love. Attention
shifts within fragile forms assuming responses to both psychological and surrounding pressures.
I am acknowledging aspects of my life and family, the aspirations as well as the misfortunes. As
social beings we participate in many varied groups, but the family has one of the most powerful
influences. How we observe the interactions, participate and survive this experience is in the
shadows of all these individuals. My work is about exposing and cherishing what composes our
lives, in sharing the weaknesses and strengths.
Translucency allows us to see by revealing the space and imagery within the depth of the form.
As a response to the physical properties of the natural materials, process and form evolve
aiding the observer in identifying emotional references within the forms.
Comments about fiber art
It is exciting what is happening within the field today that is called
"fiber". We identify it by its materials, yet these are not necessarily the materials that these
artists utilize. Some of us identify it by the techniques that are common to the field, but this is
not strictly adhered to either. There is also a fiber sensibility that most fiber artists connect to
feelings and concepts in their artwork. So what is it? It is an area of fine art where many artists
today explore the medium, techniques and sensibilities, and they are sculptors, painters,
photographers, printmakers, etc. It is not exclusive to the fiber artist.
Artist Statement for MSC, 2015—Carole Beadle
Creating art gives me space and time to gather my thoughts, enabling me to express what I
can't articulate with words. Extrapolating from personal experiences, the physical and
emotional environment, and systems in nature, I develop and evolve a conceptual place in form
and space. Through materials, structure and color I find a meaningful relationship that
expresses my observations.
I strive to make something aesthetically meaningful and contemplative. Often I invent
technique and find new ways to work with resources, which comes from knowing the processes
and material well in the fiber field and well as other fine art medium.
DESCRIPTION OF 3 FIBER PIECES
“The Nature of Things’” is composed of matted wire unraveled from a wire mesh and painted.
The structure evolved from a similar process of felt making. In form and color the 5 small works
represent Spirituality, Growth, Sexuality, Mindfulness and the Natural Environment.
“Raining”: An art work observing patterns of rain drops, how they elongate and move down a
surface sometimes connecting or remaining small until the flow begins. Burned wholes in the
organza fabric create the correct images of flowing drops on a tall plane of fabric gathering in
splash at the bottom.
Hiking across parched earth with is deep cracks and fissures, the unique patterns formed in
“Drought” came about. Dry felting processes depict the raised areas of mud shown in hot
colors on synthetic organza. The California environment we all do not wish to experience.
Excerpts from an article by Erma Murphy (http://www.cnch.org/cnchnet/winter-
2010/inspiring-creativity-with/)
One of the ways Professor Beadle helps her students find their creativity is to have them start
with a conceptual idea. She sees art as communication. “The materials themselves can reveal a
lot. They convey conceptual messages; hard, soft, emotions, new, old and more,” she says.
Beadle also encourages her students to explore new techniques and find new ways to form
textures or patterns. “Folks love yarn, but there are other ways to create a textile piece. One
can use a traditional textile technique on other than traditional textile materials such as wire or
plastic bags. These materials contain “memory” because we know what they are all about. That
knowledge will be part of what the project communicates. For example, one could crochet
plastic bags into soda cans to reflect the artist’s view of human consumption and waste.
You could also take traditional textile materials such as yarn or pine needles and do something
different with them such as cast them or stitch them together on a flat surface to create a
‘painting’.”
Carole’s fiber sculpture classes begin by exploring ways of working with surfaces and
structures. Her students develop their individual expressions and concepts by building threedimensional forms with traditional and non-traditional materials which include wire, plastic.
hog casings, flax, fabric and tree cuttings. Construction methods may include netting, knotting,
coiling, wrapping, layering and felting.
Notes:
Carole Beadle works using a variety of techniques in textiles. For her, each piece is a new
invention and requires problem-solving. Drought: inspiration was the cracks in the ground
caused by drought. The Nature of Things is “felted” metal window screening, after unraveling
the individual wires from the window screens. The pieces were formed, then painted with auto
paint. Rain is created by burning holes in two layers of synthetic organza, using a small
pyrography tool.
Lauren DiCioccio
Artist Statement:
In 2005 I started working in “fiber”, using hand-sewing and hand-embroidery to make a body of
work that explored the presence, and disappearance, of objects common to day-to-day life and
the relationships we make to them. The materials, tools and time-intensive labor associated
with the material conjure opposing feelings of precious and pathetic that these ubiquitous, and
often disposable or overlooked, objects possess. As these mementos and artifacts of the
everyday obsolesce, my work questions how the loss of their presence is felt, and why.
In making this work for the last nine years, I have found some answers to these questions and
have resolved many of the ideas I was curious about in this work. Objects like the newspaper
are very tactile and also dependable and loyal in their daily renewal. Because of the comfort
found in ritual and routine we build around the newspaper, the relationship we make to it is
not dissimilar to a relationship we would make with another person. By assigning human
attributes to the inanimate object, it opens us up to having emotional responses to it. We have
a similarly strong emotional response to the material of cloth and to the recognition of time,
labor, and care found in a hand-sewn object. Cloth is one of the only textures our body touches
and feels so intimately twenty-four hours a day. Its specific tactility and ability to provoke an
emotional response is extraordinary, and I have found it an extremely effective and rewarding
material to use in my art practice. Because hand-sewing and embroidery are techniques that
themselves have somewhat obsolesced, when people recognize the preciousness in sculptural
objects made in this manner, they seem to also have a secondary reaction laced with a hint of
pathetic-ness- i.e., they lament the time lost towards doing such a monotonous and timeconsuming activity to make a non-functional thing. The tension between this reaction,
combined with the overlapping recognition of both the beauty and worthwhile-ness of the
resulting object, lead to a powerful energy that the hand-sewn object exudes.
I began embroidering and sewing with no prior experience outside of doing cross-stitch projects
and watching my mom hand-sew Halloween costumes when I was a child. In learning a skill or
craft like this, the common rules insist that the student seek perfection- every stitch in line,
every knot tied, the back of the embroidery as tidy as the front. I think the actual perfection in
the material is found in exactly the opposite of these standards- when the thread tangles or
becomes matted and overworked, or where the basting stitch is left to stand on its own; when
the fabric wrinkles and twists rather than ironed flat and taut—those moments end up being
the most beautiful parts in a piece. The mistakes and the looseness show the human hand and
reflect the human spirit, and that’s the perfection.
After honing my skills in the medium through aiming for tedious mimesis and trompe l’oeil
representations of carefully collected source material, my stitches and sculpture started to feel
too stiff and practiced. I wanted to return the playfulness, joy and also struggle back into my
studio-- these were the factors that had led me to choose sewing over painting at the outset of
this body of work. At the same time, I was finding that the ‘objects of my day to day life’ that I
touched and interacted with were no longer things like the newspaper, but were the materials
and tools of my craft- cotton, needles, stuffing, thread.
I began a new body of work exploring the forms and textures and movements I could pull out of
these materials themselves, with no source material except the history my hands have made
and my knowledge and understanding of the materials that have become innate and
instinctual.
The resulting series of sculpture is organic and figural; I hope that the pieces achieve a quirky
and funny animation of material and form, while also standing as serious and formal
investigations into sculpture, especially the aspect of lightness vs weight. To make each piece, I
work from the inside out, starting with perhaps a handful of stuffing and a square of felt,
building shapes and gestures that are determined by the material and my own instinct to
manipulate it. After a coherent series of structures develops, I then start to carefully upholster,
embroider, wrap, weave, felt or embellish over each form individually until it has developed its
own identity and posture and thereby, personality. The resulting collection of sculptures has
become a family of forms that I hope appeal to the same emotions, tensions, questions and
conversation about tactile experience and our impulse to anthropomorphize “things” as my
representational work has. I have titled this show and the body of work “Familiars” because
that is the recognition of form for which I’ve strived—not quite this and not quite that, but
most definitely and very mysteriously familiar.
-Lauren DiCioccio
September 2014
Mary Josephson
Artist Statement:
Painting was my first Love. Over the course of my career my techniques and materials have
evolved, but I remain in love with the act of telling stories and celebrating human experience
though my artwork.
From the beginning, painting people meant more than achieving a physical likeness. I wanted
the work to tell a story about the person depicted, what was going on below the surface-maybe
a specific story or just the suggestion of a rich inner life - getting to the heart of the matter.
When stitching embroidery I feel a conduit and continuation of the narrative quality, the need
for storytelling, which occurs throughout history. The real and mythological blend that makes
up life both past and into the present, intersect. Additionally the playful shift of perspective
allows for another dimension or layer to the tale. There is a physical, tangible connection with
all the people who have worked with needle and thread throughout history; the metaphors of
thread as a connection- a way of tracing one’s past and connecting to the future. Also the
laborious yet constant nature of the process, building works stitch by stitch.
The same sort of marriage of ideas and historical narrative happens when working with the
mosaic tile. I feel connected to a way of communicating ideas, which is centuries old. The
themes common to my work-the cyclical nature of life expressed through the four seasons, the
planting and harvesting of food and stewardship of the earth are common subjects in glass, as
are relating the common needs and desires of humankind regardless of where or when we live
and the resiliently of the human heart mind and spirit.
Through my years of working, the underlying themes of a life’s work resonate deeply and are
linked together by these different manners of art making. Each medium allows a new freedom
of expression and the images and narrative have a different slant; a new way of more
complexly expressing emotion and looking at important ideas. Whether reading, sewing or
harvesting fruit, the figures within the paintings are immersed in their task with a singular
devotion. Their intense focus reflects the way we create our own world enabling us to survive
within the larger world. I have tried to create a sense of permanence, stability and structure
within the body of my work that the viewer might rely upon in the midst of constant change, to
draw strength and hope and comfort.
Notes:
The three pieces in the exhibition were embroidered on felt. The bas relief was created by
repeated manipulation of the fabric while embroidering. Josephson also works as a painter and
in mosaics.
Sabine Reckewell
Sabine Reckewell creates installations that play off the architectural space around them. In
what Reckewell calls “three-dimensional drawings,” these installations make visible the volume
in space using linear materials, repetition and geometry. Reckewell’s site-specific installations
draws viewers in through her use of lines, changing as the viewer’s position shifts – with shapes
and patterns coming in and out of focus around the space.
Inspiring conversation about art and innovation. Sabine creates large scale three-dimensional
drawings in space using modest materials – such as ribbons and pushpins. Cathy asked Sabine
about her inspiration, and we found out that Sabine’s work is largely influenced by the
minimalist and conceptual art of the 1960′s and 70′s – and by her personal studies in design and
fiber art. Sabine creates stunning architectural compositions that seem to float in mid-air.
Surprisingly, her work is temporary in nature. The installations are conceptualized and created
for people to enjoy – and after a while they are dismantled. This temporal quality adds to the
poetic nature of the work, making it more of an experience and less of an artifact. It was also
interesting to hear people describe how they felt in the presence of Sabine’s work – some
people said they felt “calm” while others felt “dizzy.” Either way, everyone was charmed by
Sabine’s unassuming personality and her impressive talent.
About Sabine Reckewell:
Born in Goslar, Germany in 1950 – Sabine studied industrial design
at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kassel (1970-73), and received her BS in Textile Design from UC
Davis in 1976 and her MFA in Textile Art from Lone Mountain College in San Francisco in 1978.
Her work has been exhibited in New York, Chicago and throughout California.
http://www.liquidagency.com/blog/art-and-innovation-featured-at-sabine-reckewellreception/#.VhqpXbR-qfQ
Annie Vought
Interview with Artist (http://inthemake.com/annie-vought/)
Often on our way to studio visits or coming back from them, Klea and I will get into big,
questioning conversations about life. I know that sounds a little cheesy, but it’s true. In part, I
think it’s because we are either warming up for or winding down from encounters that
frequently take on a philosophical, ruminative tone. It’s also just how we like to talk to each
other. As we drove across the bridge to Annie’s North Oakland home and studio (where she
lives with her lover, performance artist Scott V.) we were having one of these conversations—
specifically about secrets and how everyone has them. Our car-ride conversation wasn’t about
Annie’s art, but about halfway through our visit with her it dawned on me that unintentionally
it was a very apt preface to her work. Annie takes fragments of written correspondence – from
handwritten letters to text messages – that she has found, received, or written, enlarges and
reworks the text on large paper, and then meticulously goes about removing the negative
spaces with an X-acto knife. Because of the precision involved, Annie changes her X-acto blade
after every five or six cuts, so she can easily go through close to 500 blades just to finish one
piece. When I asked Annie how she goes about choosing her source material, she said she’s
most interested in text that reveals “those in between moments” of humanity and language in
which she can identify subtext — typical and commonplace communications at first glance, but
that somehow express a human frailty and an underlying element of truth. We talked about
how personal many of these correspondences are, and her willingness to expose herself and
others through them. So much is revealed inadvertently— in hesitant language, in the pauses
and empty silences between words, in muddled expressions, and overwrought sentences, and
it’s these details that Annie seems to be after in her work. As we sat out in Annie’s lovely
garden talking, with her big dog Moses lazing nearby in the sun, I kept thinking about how full
of secrets we all are and what rich and complex inner lives we lead. And yet we can’t help but
lay ourselves bare through language, in everything we say and everything we leave unsaid.
What mediums do you work with? How would you describe your subject matter? What themes
seem to occur/reoccur in your work?
I work primarily with cut paper and communication through writing. I believe handwritten
records are fragments of individual histories– expressions of self that very much bring forth the
truth of our inner lives. In the penmanship, word choice, and spelling the author is revealed in
spite of him/herself. A letter is physical confirmation of who we were at the moment it was
written, or all we have left of a person or a period of time. I also think a lot about the
relationship between the public and the private, or more specifically about how the private side
of ourselves can be made public. I want to be respectful of people, but I recognize that I’m
actively exposing them through their written communications. But in the exposure is a
vulnerability we all share. I’m interested in human relationships, overall— the ones we have
with ourselves and others.
May Wilson
Artist Statement
My work begins as a material exploration, using vinyl, industrial felt, nylon strapping, and
concrete as primary materials. The work is also in many ways a process exploration or
reinvention. Various traces of the making history remain in the final pieces.
The forms all contain a peculiar clumsy quality; they can be at once domineering characters and
naïve objects. The visceral experience of the work in scale and weight can be material limbs
relating to our own limbs, we can project onto the forms and empathize with their “becoming”.
Often the sculptures are very influenced by the environment they are intended to be in, they
are either tethered to or held up by the architecture around them.