Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC

Last month I reviewed DY Begay's transcendant show of weavings at the Museum of the American Indian.  On the same trip to DC, I also saw Subversive, Skilled, Sublime, a survey of modern and contemporary fiber works at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution.  The Renwick show is   up only through January 5, 2025, so it's last call if you want to see it in person!  

The introductory wall text for the exhibit makes the point, still apparently obligatory even after a flurry of major fiber art exhibits over the past few years, that "fiber has long inspired women artists, although their ingenuity with threads and cloth was often dismissed by art critics as inconsequential within twentieth-century American art.  The artists in Skilled, Subversive, Sublime [sic] refuted the marginalization of fiber art and asserted its validity as a powerful and expressive medium."  No matter which order you put the adjectives in for the exhibit's title, we get it:  fiber artists will be ignored and disrespected no more. 

The show is a diverse selection, ranging from weaving to embroidery to mixed media and 3D work.  I was thrilled to see in person work by some of my longstanding fiber art heroines:  Lenore Tawney, Lia Cook, Olga de Amaral, Kay Sekimachi, . . . and to discover a couple new heroines:  Emma Amos, Cynthia Schira, and Mariska Karasz.   My selection of photos is unabashedly my own favorites from a rich and diverse show; no doubt another viewer would make a different selection.  

I took more photos of Lenore Tawney's Cloud piece than of any other work.  It was beautifully positioned in the gallery to take full advantage of viewing from all angles and to maximize the play of light and shadow. 

Lenore Tawney, Box of Falling Stars, 1984.  Cotton canvas, linen thread, acrylic paint, and ink

 

 

Lenore Tawney, Box of Falling Stars, detail, 1984.  Cotton canvas, linen thread, acrylic paint, and ink

Gazing at this piece was pure magic for me.  Weavers know the beauty of angled light on an unwoven warp, the threads pregnant with possibility, fragile-seeming yet powerfully capable of bearing image and meaning.  What struck me is Tawney's pure daring to imagine--and then to pull off--a fiber work that is not woven and yet still so expressive.  

I also greatly enjoyed Tawney's other piece in the exhibit.  This one had both weft and warp, but the weft was so loosely sketched in that the weaving remained ethereal, making cast shadows again a vital part of the viewing experience.  

Lenore Tawney, In the Dark Forest, 1959.  Woven linen, wool, silk.

Lenore Tawney, In the Dark Forest, detail, 1959.  Woven linen, wool, silk.

Tawney's work was in conversation with this piece nearby, Reflections by Cynthia Schira.  Where Tawney's pieces are weaving stripped down to a bare minimum, Schira's weaving is maximal, using supplemental wefts, woven and twined, in wildly varying widths and paths to make a richly textured and shimmering surface.  I stood back to get the full sweep of the forms and shifts in light and color, then I moved in close to savor the textures. 

Cynthia Schira, Reflections, 1982.  Woven and bound resist-dyed cotton and dyed rayon

Cynthia Schira, Reflections, detail, 1982.  Woven and bound resist-dyed cotton and dyed rayon

Other weavers pushing the limits of the medium included Olga de Amaral, in this textile of woven strips that are themselves woven into a meta-weaving.  It lacks the dazzling shimmer of some of her work but was nonetheless a pleasure to see one of her signature techniques up close. 

Olga de Amaral, Cal y Canto, c. 1979.  Linen and gesso.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Olga de Amaral, detail, Cal y Canto, c. 1979.  Linen and gesso.

Lia Cook's work was also meta, pieced together sections of weaving cheekily made from painted fabric and paper.  Is it a quilt?  A weaving?  A painting?  Cook is quoted:  "I wanted to push the boundaries of weaving.  What could I make weaving do that no one had done before?"  I studied this piece for awhile and still wasn't quite sure I knew how it was made.  I love that blurring of methods and categories. 

Lia Cook, Crazy Too Quilt, 1989.  Acrylic paint on dyed rayon woven with pressed abaca paper.

Lia Cook, Crazy Too Quilt, detail, 1989.  Acrylic paint on dyed rayon woven with pressed abaca paper.

This work by a maker new to me, Mariska Karasz, blew me away.  Though the label text refers to only embroidery, it appears to me to consist of a very loosely woven base layer topped with stitch and perhaps looping or knotless netting.  Again the artist seems to blur the boundaries between techniques, making a delicate layered web of pattern, color and texture.  "Embroidery is to sewing what poetry is to prose; the stitches can be made to sing out as words in a poem,"  Mariska Karasz said. 

Mariska Karasz, Breeze ca. 1958.  Embroidered linen, plastic, and mixed fibers

Mariska Karasz, Breeze detail, ca. 1958.  Embroidered linen, plastic, and mixed fibers

Mariska Karasz, Breeze detail, ca. 1958.  Embroidered linen, plastic, and mixed fibers

Finally, two other, very different,  pieces stood out for me:  Susan L. Iverson's tapestry Ancient Burial IV--Night and Kay Sekimachi's Nagare VII.  Where Iverson's tapestry is sturdy and boldly graphic, weft-faced weaving at 6 epi, Sekimachi's sculpture is, like Tawney's, nearly not-there, an ethereal, vaguely helical form of woven monofilament. Both speak powerfully in distinct voices and tones.  Iverson layers three woven panels in a strongly architectural manner evocative of Peruvian weaving and culture.  Sekimachi makes fibers twist and interlace to suggest the flowing waters of a flowing river, nagare in Japanese.

Susan L. Iverson, Ancient Burial IV--Night, detail,1989.  Wool on linen warp. (Apologies for the skewed perspective of the photo.)

Susan L. Iverson, Ancient Burial IV--Night, detail,1989.  Wool on linen warp. 

Kay Sekimachi, Nagare VII, 1970.  Woven nylon monofilament.

Kay Sekimachi, Nagare VII, detail, 1970.  Woven nylon monofilament.

It was hugely stimulating and inspiring for me to see this show in the same weekend as DY Begay's Sublime Light.  I walked away confirmed in my belief that weaving is a capacious and expressive language, one that weavers--and thoughtful viewers--never tire of speaking.  

Objects Redux at Santa Fe's Form & Concept gallery

Fifty years ago, a hugely impactful exhibit of studio craft, Objects:  USA, opened at the Smithsonian's American Art Museum.  The work of three hundred craft artists was featured, and the exhibit traveled around the US and Europe.  This show is credited with sparking a wave of craft collecting by both museums and private collectors and a new openness to showing fine craft alongside fine art.  The artists in that show were and are legends in their field, and many of them taught future generations of craft artists.

Now to mark the anniversary of that show, the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft has organized the exhibit Objects: Redux: Fifty Years of Craft Evolution and traveled it to Santa Fe, bringing together work by artists from the first show alongside work by contemporary artists working in craft and mixed media.  I attended the opening of the show in Santa Fe, a gallery talk the next day by Houston curator Kathryn Hall and William Dunn of Form & Concept gallery. . . and I will return for a third visit to study these works some more.  Hall and Dunn emphasized that the Redux exhibit is not intended to present "the best" artists or work from then and now.  Rather, the intent is to present work from both periods that shows artists experimenting with materials and responding to the issues and events of their time.

For me the show is intriguing for several reasons.  First, there are stunning works by renowned weavers such as Hal Painter, Trude Guermonprez, Kay Sekimachi and Chinami and Rowland Ricketts.  There is a gorgeous chest by George Nakashima, three glowing knitted wire collars by Arline Fisch, and a luminous mahogany charger by Bob Stocksdale.  This work responds above all to the limits and possibilities of materials.  All of these works show the fine finishes, expert skill, and elegant unity of, well, form and concept in pure craft media.  These are qualities that I was taught to venerate in fine craft.  (I am the daughter of a woodworker who taught me to appreciate the precise, perfect dovetails and the silky finish of fine cabinetry.)  These works are perfectly executed and visually gorgeous.

Hal Painter, Wedded Rocks, 1980. Handwoven tapestry. 

detail, Hal Painter, Wedded Rocks, 1980. Handwoven tapestry.

Trude Guermonprez, Banner, 1965.  Silk hanging. Courtesy Forrest L. Merrill collection

detail, Trude Guermonprez, Banner, 1965.  Silk hanging. Courtesy Forrest L. Merrill collection

Kay Sekimachi, Ogawa II, 1969.  Nylon monofilament, glass beads, clear plastic tubes.
Courtesy Forrest L. Merrill collection

detail, Kay Sekimachi, Ogawa II, 1969.  Nylon monofilament, glass beads, clear plastic tubes.
Courtesy Forrest L. Merrill collection.  Photo by Sam Elkind

Chinami Ricketts, Noshime Plaid, 2019.  Indigo-dyed brown cotton, plain weave.

detail, Chinami Ricketts, Noshime Plaid, 2019.  Indigo-dyed brown cotton, plain weave.

George Nakashima, Kornblut Case, c. 197o.  Black walnut, maple burl.
Courtesy of Hunt Modern

Bob Stocksdale, Charger, 1986.  Mahoghany.
Courtesy Forrest L. Merrill collection
Nut with Spoon and Dish, 1970, silver, by Robert Ebendorf (left).
Untitled Vase, 1990s, silver by John Marshall (right). 

Just look at the beautiful detail on this silver vase! 

detail, John Marshall, Untitled Vase, 1990s, silver.
photo by Sam Elkind

Arline Fisch, Knitted Round Beads, 2017.  Coated copper wire, silver magnet clasp. 

Objects: Redux includes the work of contemporary artists that is for me at least a little more challenging to love on first sight, though I may eventually come around.  These artists have in many cases moved away from precious materials, away from a focus on a single medium or process, away from perfect finishes and elegant aesthetics toward something rougher, funkier, more mixed-media, ironic and critical.  These works challenge me to move beyond my expectation that work in craft media must be visually appealing above all (which is another way of saying it must please me and conform to my expectations if it wants my approval, right?).  These works pose questions and provoke puzzlement, consternation and conversation.

And yet all of this is of course characteristic of the broader movement in modern and contemporary art on the whole, away from "the beautiful"  toward a fraught engagement with issues other than perfectly elegant form and finish.  These artists whose work is more prickly are offering stories about their own identities and communities and investigating the history and culture around their materials.

Yuri Kobayashi, Curio, 2015.  Ash. 

detail, Yuri Kobayashi, Curio, 2015.  Ash. 

Josh Fought compiled a textile as an imaginative portrait of an ex-boyfriend.  It's meant to be discontinuous, puzzling, and multi-faceted.  It might be tempting to dismiss it as "sloppy" craft,  but there's more to it than that.  Faught is opening up textiles to voices, narratives, and ways of telling a story that haven't been so overtly included before.

Josh Faught, Max, 2014.  Handwoven silver lamé and hemp, nail polish, sequin trim, spill (resin) with broken Cathy mug, giant clothes pin, denim, silk, wine glass, toilet paper on cedar support

detail, Josh Faught, Max, 2014.  Handwoven silver lamé and hemp, nail polish, sequin trim, spill (resin) with broken Cathy mug, giant clothes pin, denim, silk, wine glass, toilet paper on cedar support

The Rickettses, Rowland and Chinami, grow and harvest indigo in traditional ways.  Rowland's work references the complicated role of indigo in American history and the integral part it played in the "triangle trade" that included human trafficking.

Rowland Ricketts, Unbound-Series 1 No. 4, 2016-2018.  Indigo and madder-dyed linen, undyed wool. 

detail, Rowland Ricketts, Unbound-Series 1 No. 4, 2016-2018.  Indigo and madder-dyed linen, undyed wool. 

Jennifer Ling Datchuk, recently awarded a United States Artist Fellowship in Craft, has done a take on macrame plant hangers that repays close examination.  The fibers she uses for the macrame are synthetic brightly colored human hair sourced from China via e-Bay.  The plant containers are blue and white ceramics chosen to reference Chinese and Dutch porcelain.  Datchuk says her use of "handwork, hair and ceramics [is] emblematic of the small rituals that fix, smooth over and ground women's lives."

Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Loving Care, 2019.  Porcelain, fake hair, porcelain beads from Jingdezhen, China, rope, ferns.  Made in collaboration with Marta Francine.
Background:  Arline Fisch, Knitted Round Beads and Silver and Lavender

MJ Tyson makes metal objects and jewelry from jewelry and household goods sourced from estate sales.  The pieces are formed from an unstable blend of metals--she fully expects them to degrade and fall apart over time.  The curator mentioned how disconcerting it was to unpack the crate containing Tyson's work and find bits and pieces that had fallen off the work.  Old stories are subsumed in new ones, and very concept of what is precious is called into question.

MJ Tyson, 102 Garden Hills Drive, 2017, personal objects belonging to the deceased residents of 102 Garden Hills Drive
On wall:  Rowland Ricketts, Drawings, 2019, composted indigo leaves, wood ash, lime, wheat bran, wool felt

MJ Tyson, 16 Summit Road, 2018, personal objects belonging to the deceased residents of 16 Summit Road

Those of us who work in craft media are continually re-assessing our approach to our materials, our subjects, and our methods.  Today we can make and show work that is startlingly raw, rough and confrontational if we choose.  If we are lucky our work contributes meaningfully to the wider conversation always going on between artist and artist and artist and viewer.  Objects: Redux will run through March 17 at Santa Fe's Form & Concept gallery.

"Beyond Punch Cards" at Santa Fe's Form & Concept gallery

We've all heard, probably more than once, that the punch cards that programmed the first computers were based on the punch cards used to create intricate weaving structures on the original Jacquard looms.  Both technologies, weaving and computing, rely on binary systems.  Recently I visited an exhibit at Form & Concept Gallery in Santa Fe that explores this connection more deeply, showing "innovative ways old and new technologies interlace each other."  Curators Renata Gaui and Francesca Rodriguez Sawaya selected works from around the world that investigate how both technologies might "converge and evolve to resist obsolescence."  Though the show has closed, you can read about it and see the work here.  Click on each work for artists' statements and more.

For me, the piece below stole the show.  At the top, a beautifully woven image that showcases what Jacquard weaving can do slowly disintegrates toward the bottom of the piece, reflecting the disintegration of the neglected loom on which it was woven.   I'm including a photo of the full label text as it is so pertinent to the state of textiles and weaving instruction in higher art education today.

Gabrielle Dugan, Weaving2018

detail, Gabrielle Dugan, Weaving2018.  The woven text reads "I am past and future." 

I acquired my own floor loom when a university art department sold all the looms in the fiber area, on the assumption that weaving had been superseded by a focus on surface design and mixed media.

Another piece was striking in its merging of technology and weaving.   For this work, viewers are invited to use a tablet to activate the piece.  Code embedded in the weaving creates prismatic shapes on the screen of the tablet when the tablet is held in front of the panel.

C. Alex Clark, Aliased Quarry/Diffraction Query

detail, C. Alex Clark, Aliased Quarry/Diffraction Query

detail, C. Alex Clark, Aliased Quarry/Diffraction Query

"Gee whiz" is my response here.  The piece does go far "beyond punch cards" to illustrate the interlacement of weaving concepts with the mechanics of light and computing, reminding us perhaps that art and science are not as distinct as we may think.  For a full explanation of how this works, go here.

For me the following piece packed a more emotional punch.  What appears at first glance to be a traditional overshot coverlet is revealed, upon reading the label, to contain Kevlar, the bulletproof fiber.  The piece is part of a projected collection of "bulletproof home goods," inspired by the 2016 mass murder at Pulse nightclub in Orlando and the resulting, unsurprising fact that many gay people report feeling safer at home than in public.  The artist says she wove the piece specifically to raise awareness about safety issues for LGBTQ people.

Erika Diamond, Overshot Safety Blanket (lapghan) from the Imminent Peril-Queer Collection

Finally, this piece made a trenchant point despite its small size (11" x 8.5").

Askanksha Aggarwal, Fragment-From the Women who Did Not Make History series.  

detail, Askanksha Aggarwal, Fragment-From the Women who Did Not Make History series.  Phrases alluding to the "hidden narratives" of the artist's female relatives are partially discernible in the laser-etched woven paper strips.

This is a show whose appeal is conceptual as well as optical. Every piece requires the viewer to read the label to fully appreciate what is going on.  Artists do not rely on vibrant color or traditional technical prowess to wow the viewer; the punch, as in much contemporary art, is in the concept.  It is the mission of Form & Concept gallery to blur and break down the false distinctions and outdated hierarchies that still separate art, craft, and design, and I can only applaud this. From the gallery's mission statement:  "We dispute the historic use of these terms to divide artists and rank material culture."  I look forward to more exhibits that show what is possible in media formerly known as "craft." 

SDA's juried show "Shifting Landscapes," part 2

Last week I shared with you a look at the juried members' show of the Surface Design Association (SDA), currently on view at form & concept gallery in Santa Fe through May 20.  Today I'd like to pick up where I left off, with a look at three specific fiber media as represented by works in the show:  weaving, embroidery, and quilting.  Remember that the brief for the show is that the artwork needed to be made of fiber or using fiber techniques, or be inspired by textiles.  (Disclosures:  while I am a member of SDA, I did not enter this show.  And, for better or worse, all photographs are by me.)

As I shared last week, my favorite piece was Red Dirt Rug by Rena Detrixhe:

Red Dirt Rug, Rena Detrixhe.  earth, 96' x 72" x 5"

   

In her statement, the artist wrote:

The refining and sifting of the soil and the imprinting of the pattern is a meditation on this past, a gesture of sensitivity and a desire for understanding.  It is a meticulous and solitary act.  .. . The form of the rug, from a western perspective, is an object of luxury; it is a symbol of authority and power.  For the maker it is an expression of beauty and often cultural significance, the result of many hours of careful labor.  Through this form, I contemplate the tension between nature and human impact while suggesting the ubiquitousness and preciousness of the earth just below our feet. 

This reference to "meticulous and solitary. . . hours of careful labor" helped me to see that this piece, though it contains no fiber and uses no textile techniques at all, belongs in this show as a kind of conceptual weaving.  It's a fresh and thoughtful response to the function, history and traditional patterning of rugs.  It flips the exquisitely crafted luxury item and status symbol on its head.

A more traditional weaving spoke to a very specific place, the Litzmannstadt, or Lodz, ghetto in Poland during World War II.  From this site Jews from all over Europe were deported to concentration camps.  Wendy Weiss based her image on a photograph of a commemorative granite marker.  She effectively uses Jacquard weaving (I believe) to create a piece that evokes imprisonment.  For me the separate strips suggest a kind of fence, as does the diamond patterning. There is no taking comfort in the softness of this material.

Wendy Weiss, Litzmannstadt Getto, 1940-1944, weaving, 53" x 111"

detail, Wendy Weiss, Litzmannstadt Getto, 1940-1944, weaving, 53" x 111"

I liked this piece better the more I looked at it.  Each paper tag or label, all 638 of them, was colored with watercolor and ink.  Its connection to weaving and fiber is tenuous (though paper is technically a fiber), but in this case the grid format, the color, and the implied elements of labor over time made for me an interesting conceptual connection for me with weaving.  The connection to place is perhaps implied by the colors and the horizontal lines; the title suggests this is more of an internal landscape.

Jenna Lynch, Traveling Within, Feeling Through, Dreaming Beyond, The Lines
638 watercolor and ink drawings on paper, 56" x 33"

detail, Jenna Lynch, Traveling Within, Feeling Through, Dreaming Beyond, The Lines
638 watercolor and ink drawings on paper, 56" x 33"

In the field of embroidery, there was one piece that might be called "straight" or traditional.

Mandy Remmen, Blue Mountains, embroidery, 10" x 11.5" x 1.75"

At first glance, a familiar scene of hills under a blue sky, presented in a very traditional gilt frame, seemed almost quaint in the context of other, edgier work in the show.  But closer inspection shows a boldness and freedom to the stitching that belies the fussiness and prettiness of much conventional embroidery.  The frame begins to seem like a ironic comment on the subject and the medium.

detail, Mandy Remmen, Blue Mountains, embroidery, 10" x 11.5" x 1.75"

Quiltmaking is undoubtedly one of the most popular fiber art forms today.  Artists are exploring a myriad of surface design techniques and materials to move quilting far beyond its utilitarian origins. The quilts in this show represented several current trends in the art quilt world:  embellishment, improvisational piecing, and rust-dyeing.  

Melody Money, Sky Prayers, Memories of Sky, mixed-media textile, 59" x 41"

detail, Melody Money, Sky Prayers, Memories of Sky, mixed-media textile, 59" x 41"

The artist does convey a sense of  a magical, sacred Eastern landscape in this piece.  The quilting is exquisite.  While technically impressive, this piece seems a bit overworked and over-embellished to me.

Improvisational piecing and the use of ragged scraps have been popular for a few decades now, thanks to artists like the Gee's Bend quilters, Nancy Crow, and countless others.  Hand-stitching is also making a comeback, and all of this is evident in this piece:

Patricia Kennedy-Zafred, A Dying Breed, fiber, art quilt, 44" x 44"

Regina Benson took an interesting approach to the quilt format, slicing the rectangle into three shards and mounting them as a relief on the wall.

Regina Benson, V Restored Legacy, fiber, 42" x 46" x 3"

detail, Regina Benson, V Restored Legacy, fiber, 42" x 46" x 3"

I wonder if the title is a reference to the old iron tools, perhaps, that had been used to rust-dye the fabric. There is a sense of industrial decay, of a whole that has come apart here (a twist on the pieced quilt that makes a whole from fragments), that could be a comment on the future of our natural world.

If you've made it this far, thank you for reading!  Obviously my opinions are simply my own responses.  You would likely respond differently to this work, and that is as it should be.  Please share your comments below.  Let's engage in the critical conversation our fiber medium needs.