Art/Sewn at Asheville Art Museum

Recollection...terracotta (1), 2008

cloth, acrylic paint, thread

Courtesy of Elisa D'Arrigo and Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York

On Saturday I drove up to Asheville NC to visit the Asheville Art Museum's installation of Art/Sewn.  This exhibition featured the work of 11 artists who incorporate stitch into their art work but who do not identify themselves as fiber artists or their work primarily through material or process.

The show was curated by Ward Mintz, Executive Director of the Coby Foundation in New York.  Mintz was approached by Hanne Tierney, the Director of Five Myles gallery, to select a contemporary art exhibition about women who sew.

I would love to be able to show you installation shots as well as examples of the work in this show but photography was not allowed.  I have, however, written about one of the selected artists, Elise D'Arrigo, several times so I have included a photograph of one of her works in the show.

The work of several of the artists stood out for me:  D'Arrigo, Hannah Chalew, Linnea Glatt and Emily Barletta. 

D/Arrigo's work was very strong, composed, tight and quietly commanding.  There were 4 pieces in the show all hung together on a free standing wall.  It was great to see them side by side.  The largest piece only 20 x 19 x 4 but the surfaces are so complex that the viewer is drawn right up to inspect each one.  There are qualities of nature, primitive masks, and architecture.  These are works to be viewed over a long period of time.

The work of Jessica Rankin gets the prize for obsession.  Currently a resident of New Orleans, Rankin works from observation of the post Katrina landscape, devoid of people but rich with vines and the process of nature reclaiming space and devouring man-made structures.

As someone who has lived most of my life in the south the power of fast growing vines isn't new to me or very interesting but there are aspects of Rankin's use of materials and process I really enjoyed.  Some of the work employed massive, isolated areas of machine stitching on heavy paper.  This stitching was done over very detailed organic drawings of houses/buildings.  The uneven stitching causes an uneven pull on the paper which writhes and buckles under the stress.  I could enjoy the paper and stitching without the drawing although I understand the importance of that for this artist.  

She also does some of the most delicate, painful, obsessive paper cutting I've ever seen.  If you visit  HERE and click on the link underneath the photograph of her work, you can see one of her cut paper pieces.  I had not realized these pieces were dimensional until I saw the work.  

The last artists I'll mention is Linnea Glatt.  Click HERE to see a full shot and detail of the work in the Art/Sewn show.  I was unable to find her website but you can go HERE to see a photo-stream of some more of her work.  Glatt's work is minimalist in nature using stitching on paper.  The work in the show was very spare with a circular grid with the intersecting lines marked with french knots.  All the thread was unseen except the knots.  Lovely.

Another artist working with stitching on paper is Emily Barletta.  If you receive the Surface Design Journal you will have seen her work featured recently in Making it in NY.  I wrote about this article HERE.   This work is also spare in that it is red stitching on a white ground but the ground is paper and the stitching is tiny and profuse.  I was much more impressed with the work after seeing it in person.  The handling of the paper must be very tricky to keep it as pristine as it is.  The work was installed flat on the wall with what looked like tacks with heads of paper or plastic that matched the paper.  Very elegant.

Those of you who live in driving distance of Asheville will enjoy seeing this show and if you do visit or saw the show at Five Myle, I'd love to hear from you as to your thoughts on the show.

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The Expressive Stitch

I returned home 2 weeks ago from Quilting by the Lake where I took a course with artist Dorothy Caldwell. The workshop was entitled The Expressive Stitch and was focused on the use of kantha embroidery as used in India.


Dorothy shared her passion for this form of stitching and brought large pieces the size of bed coverings which showed how this type of stitching is used to make what I call "story quilts." I don't think Dorothy used that term but the pieces do tell the stories of the events of day to day life as well as important events in the villages where these women live. Unfortunately, the photos I shot during this class are of such poor quality that I am not going to post but a few. My description of these works is that there are designated women who do the planning and drawing of the work and then the stitching is shared among the group. They take sections of the pieces home and work on them and then assemble the entire work when completed. They are both simple and complex and very charming despite some very serious cultural depictions such as bride burning, widow burning etc.


We were given the assignment of creating a group of 4 images that related to one another using something that was very topical in our lives (forgive me Dorothy...at this point that is my memory of the assignment) I choose to start with a funny little man who sat next to me on my flight to the workshop. He was too big for the seat and smelled bad. I then did his "girlfriend", his dog and his snake.




Stinky, Marcella, Little Pup and Curley Q


In all honesty, I am not sure why we spent so much time on these pieces but something interesting did happen. I am not a writer, but as I continued to work on these images a story began to develop about the relationships between the four characters and I spent several hours yesterday writing a 7, 800 word story about them. Trust me, I have never done that before in my life unless it was an assignment. The relationships were so clear and the story just sort of flowed out. I am going to edit just a bit and send the story to my workshop classmates and Dorothy. I may post here later but I'll have to really think about that.



Wall of Small Works


This is a shot of some of the small pieces done by other members of the group. They do make an interesting group. Wonderful to see all the different images.




Time Lines


The second exercise we worked on was a Time line. I won't reveal what we did or how but the above image is only part of three different time lines done by three different people. The one on the bottom is part of mine. These pieces allowed us to explore more free form ways of using stitching and again, there was a wonderful array of approaches demonstrated.


Dorothy's lecture showing the work of artists who use stitching was fantastic as were the printed materials and artifacts she brought to share. She also spoke with us briefly about her own work and did a private "consultation" with each member of the class who wanted this interaction. The private time I shared with Dorothy was meaningful and insightful.


I personally have been feeling a desire for change in my work brought on by my weekly textile constructions and this workshop has also contributed to new "words" in my art vocabulary. I have completed 2 new WTC's since returning (they will be posted soon) and I used stitching in both. Thank you Dorothy.


This Monday I will be posting images of the Second Stage of Compositional Conversation as well as a mini-profile of Rebecca Howdeshell. Hope to see you then.