2021
DARE REVEL DIVE, July 2 – 31, 2021, Chiaroscuro Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Years ago I came across a cartoon by Edward Gorey in the New Yorker, 1988:
A one or two-inch piece of string cannot be used for anything…
(although I remembered the rhyme as a one or two-inch piece of string is not much good for anything.)
The disdain, the dismissive rejection, with the figure’s head turned away, a small string dangling from curled fingers, made me furious! The refrain echoes and impels me to commit to making beautiful work with string!
Tension, resist, coercion, and gesture; evolving and dissolving the constraints and boundaries to push the woven grid with various materials and techniques have been the tools and rules I use to express my truths.
This show spans five years and three bodies of work, none of which would be possible without the other; the four banners are a departure in their political and calligraphic imagery; the pastels joyous; and the woven paper emotional and rebellious. The immediacy and satisfaction in the tender tugs at memories which surface with new materials and processes, surprise and deepen my commitment to the studio and to the meditative repetition in work.
DARE
My work in the studio is weaving, dyeing, drawing and painting. On or off the loom it is in acting upon the resistance of materials that I make my art, find my voice, my gesture, and my way of engaging with the world.
These four banners mark a departure, a disruption, from my former way of working. No longer am I in command of each element in the making. The threads resist, push back, push me, provoke the process of the weaving. The lines, the graphics, the voice of each piece astonish me with a vitality, a freedom from rules, and reveal unspoken truths.
Begun in 2016 on one continuous set of vertical silk threads under tension on the loom, each warp section was tied with its own distinct design and dyed into what would become the working canvas. Into and onto this surface, I painted, stained, rubbed, leaked, oozed, fussed and finessed with pigment, soy milk, sumi ink, and dye. Embedded messages, unwanted lessons, fading habits, new materials with their surprising results began to play in my work as I felt tossed time and again up against that hurdle between weaving and painting. I gave myself free rein to leap into an unknown.
Ultimately, these banners wanted to hang free, to act in space, unfurled like scrolls as calligraphic performers, clamorous in their authority, bravery and delicacy.
Prey, 2017, Silk, double ikat with additional dye, 64.5” x 31.5”
Thicket, 2018, Silk, double ikat with additional dye, 64.5” x 31.5”
Live Wire, 2019-2020, Silk, warp ikat with screened pigment in soy milk. Metallic copper wire weft, 64.5” x 31.5”
Anchor, 2020, Silk, double ikat with additional dye, pigment, soy milk, sumi ink, 64.5” x 31.5”
REVEL
Working in pastel feels fluid and soft to my fingertips. Immediate satisfaction comes in rubbing pure color on paper. The matte surface is fragile, delicious and the walls of my studio energized with a riot of ideas, playful and spontaneous.
These pastels have led to a shift in my work, a new freedom in coming to the blank paper with no constraints, no pre-patterned canvas. For years I have worked with by building layers of color and patterns tied and dyed into the warp and weft of my woven work. These grids of pastel ground me to breath and being in the studio. They provide another rhythm in working as I listen to what will emerge next.
3 groups of 9 pastels framed:
Untitled I, 2021, pastel on paper, 53” x 41”
Untitled II, 2021, pastel on paper, 53” x 41”
Untitled III, 2021, pastel on paper, 53” x 41”
DIVE
Her broad back floated on the surface, the weight of motherhood and daughterhood suspended with her breath. That hull of a back, larger than any span I might have imagined; a container of emotion larger than life—certainly than my life. The mama humpback whale I encountered off the coast of Cape Cod last summer pierced me with a sadness, a longing, and the shiver of love. I felt bonded to another creature, unprepared for the solemn wrench of grief which devoured reason. Compassion, trust, suffering, family, connections, life, loss, death, the mama humpback brought a new texture of urgency to my work.
Kaiwase Blue, Works on handwoven linen paper, “shifu” “nagare boshi” dyed with indigo, pigment, soy milk, with metal and silver leaf and pastel,18.25 x 16.25”, 2021
Fierce Solace, Works on handwoven linen paper, “shifu” “nagare boshi” dyed with indigo, pigment, soy milk, with metal and silver leaf and pastel,18.25 x 16.25”, 2021
Softening Down, Works on handwoven linen paper, “shifu” “nagare boshi” dyed with indigo, pigment, soy milk, with metal and silver leaf and pastel,18.25 x 16.25”, 2021
Deep Dive, Works on handwoven linen paper, “shifu” “nagare boshi” dyed with indigo, pigment, soy milk, with metal and silver leaf and pastel,18.25 x 16.25”, 2021
Surfacing, Works on handwoven linen paper, “shifu” “nagare boshi” dyed with indigo, pigment, soy milk, with metal and silver leaf and pastel,18.25 x 16.25”, 2021