Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies

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Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies Ivy Celeste Swanson Vance

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Division III Division III Committee Karen Koehler, Chair Monique Roelofs, Member

Dedicated to Kurt Vance and Elspeth Vance, thing-makers and masters of tedium.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

1

Preface

3

Introduction

9

Reproduction/Translation

29

Tedium

51

Collectivity

77

Conclusion

103

Notes

111

List of Figures

115

Bibliography

119

Acknowledgements

This project has been years in the making, in fact I think that every art, art history, and art theory class I have taken while at Hampshire has pushed me towards writing this text. However, the class that sparked this specific exploration of aesthetics was taught by my member, Monique Roelofs. It was through this critical examination of aesthetic desire and distaste that I began thinking of a set of aesthetics that could represent textiles and fiber craft. Furthermore, the work that I have done for the Institute for Curatorial Practice with my chair, Karen Koehler, has been extremely influential as well.

Karen has acted an unflinching support since my sophomore year and without her advice and input I would not have had the courage to take on this project. Working with these two exceedingly intelligent women has been a true honor and has made me challenge myself intellectually again and again. Thank you for all your generosity and encouragement over the last year.

I must also thank my mother, Margaret Vance, who has been a huge support for me while I have been living across the country for the last four years. Her generosity on all fronts has allowed me to continually persist in my follies. I would also like to thank my closest kin, Kathryn Greenwood Swanson, who has helped me in so many ways during my time in the Valley. Additionally, I am in deep gratitude to Daniel Emam, Lily Bartle, and Isadora Reisner who have acted as my copy editors and confidants. I must acknowledge all the help I received from the folks at the Writing Center, Ellie Siegel, Will Ryan, Andrew Byler, and Emma Binder. I am indebted to all the women in my family who knitted swatches for this project, as well as my brother, Henry Vance, for photographing them. Finally, I want to thank all the fiber-crafters and thing-makers in my family, who have inspired me since I was young, and for whom this text is written.

1

Preface Thinking through…craft?

Isn’t craft something mastered in the hands, not in the mind?

Something consisting of physical actions, rather than abstract ideas?

-Glenn Adamson, Thinking Through Craft1

T

his text comes out four years of research on textiles, fiber art, and fiber-based crafts. Since the start of my time at Hampshire College, I have been eager to take advantage of the school’s emphasis on independent study. As a student of art history and theory as well as a fiber crafter, I found I was committed to finding the intersections between these two fields. What soon became my biggest hurdle was the actual amount of writing there was on my specific interests. There have been plenty of books and essays written about textiles and fiber craft; their pre-historic origins, conservation issues, and niche practices, like Elizabeth Wayland Barber’s Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times, to name just one. There is even a fair amount of research accounting for the gendered nature of textile production and the uncertain status of textiles within the hierarchy of art and craft, Rozsika Parker’s Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine and Elisa Auther’s String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art. There are also a few surveys that focus on artists who primarily use textiles and/ or fiber craft in their practices, Fiber: Sculpture 1960-Present and Art & Textiles: Fabric as Material and Concept in Modern Art from Klimt to the Present. I read and researched as many of these texts and artists as I could. I incorporated them into term papers and class presentations as soon as the opportunity 3

Preface

presented itself. However, it was through this exploration into the scholarship on textiles and fiber craft that I realized what was missing from this field was a formal analysis of vernacular fiber craft and textiles as aesthetic objects, rather than products of material culture.

This is not to say that there has not been research and analysis on use of fiber in artistic projects and movements, there has been plenty of that. Rarely does the consideration of fiber craft in relation to the work go beyond recognizing the artist’s choice in using a medium that traditionally categorized as a craft, and more specifically, a craft that is often amended with the qualifiers, “domestic” and “feminine.” Although this does get at some of the conceptual underpinnings of artists that use fiber craft, it falls short in understanding the material nuances present in textiles, particularly handmade textiles. As a maker, I began to feel that many of these writers and theorists were overlooking the substance of the work, the actual stuff that it is made of. From many years of knitting and sewing— and appreciating the knitting, sewing, weaving, etc. of others—I have come to recognize specific formal qualities that are present in fiber craft. In realizing the lack of dialogue happening in this area of artistic production, it became my objective to define these traits. Through the many courses I took in art history and theory I was able to develop a vocabulary that allowed me to create a language that describes the aesthetic features that I recognized in textiles and textile practice.

Although not dealing directly with textiles, the writings of Naomi Schor, Shianne Ngai, and Glenn Adamson were extremely influential in understanding how to create an aesthetic vocabulary where there previously was none. Schor’s analysis of the detail as an aesthetic category which is linked with the feminine, ornamental, and quotidian, challenged me to think of other categories which are in a similar position.2 Ngai’s interest in creating an aesthetic vocabulary that focuses 4

Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies

on distaste, rather than desire, or what she calls “ugly feelings” inspired me to wrestle with the many ways aesthetic languages can be framed.3 Finally, Adamson, the leading theorist on contemporary craft, provided me with insights about craft which are missing from other monographs on the subject.

In his text, Thinking Through Craft, he argues that “craft’s inferiority might be the most productive thing about it.”4 This reframing of craft in the art/craft hierarchy inspired me not to argue that fiber craft should be considered an art, but to tease out a vocabulary that can be applied to both an artwork and the vernacular object.

Additionally, the artists presented in this work have been extremely instrumental informing what type of language is needed in the field of textile practice. I was able to interview both Anna Von Mertens and Marie Watt for this project. I also started a correspondence with fiber artist Franny Capone, whose work does not appear in this text, but is extremely relevant to the topics discussed in this project. From these conversations, I gleaned that each of these fiber artists were searching for a more concrete lexicon to describe and think through their work as it relates to fiber craft and textiles more broadly. This text was written to create a thoughtful and respectful language for a medium that, for many reasons, has been largely neglected.

It is my hope that this project can bring fiber artists and fiber crafters closer to a shared language that thoughtfully considers their work. But most importantly, this project stems from my own experience as a fiber crafter and is dedicated to all the women in my family who given me hours of instruction in the fiber-based crafts and in doing so, instilled in me a great amount of reverence towards the textile arts.

5

Introduction

O

n January 21, 2017, millions of women marched on Washington in protest of the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump. Many of these women donned pink hats of various shades and sizes, which when worn resembled cat ears (fig. 1.1). Why were these women wearing these nearly identical hats and where did they come from? This was a question put forth by one of President Trump’s advisors, Michael Cohen, in a tweet in response to the march, “Impressed by the number of supporters for the women’s movement yesterday. Question: Were the pink hats made in the USA?”1 (fig. 1.2) This question is indicative of the state of textiles in contemporary material culture. The hats were in fact made in the USA, because they were handmade by the participants of the Pussyhat Project (fig. 1.3). This project was organized by several women who wanted to provide the women’s march with a collective, visual statement that connected all of them as advocates of women’s rights, safety, and health.2 The word “pussy” is meant as a double entendre, referring to cat shaped hats and the leaked footage where Trump elaborates on his sexual exploits with women claiming he can “grab them by the pussy.”3 Patterns were circulated in knitting stores and through social media platforms weeks before the march. Ambitious knitters made multiple hats and delivered them to drop off points, for people who wanted to participate in the project, but could not make one. The hats at the march created a “sea of pink” making a distinct visual statement of unity opposing the inauguration of the current president.4 Besides the visual impact, the most energizing part of the Pussyhat Project was the fact that each one of these hats 9

Introduction

was handmade. Although this is one of the central themes of the project, it seems to have been lost on a larger public.

Returning to Cohen’s tweet, it did not even occur to him that these hats could have been made by hand. Instead, he immediately assumed that the labor was outsourced to another country. Many people replied to this tweet, directing him to the Pussyhat Project’s website. But was he really at fault for this assumption? Presently, most textiles are manufactured globally in factories. The proliferation of mass-produced textiles has created an attitude towards textiles that neglects their origins as handmade objects, which is how most textiles were made prior to the turn of the nineteenth century with the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the introduction of mechanized textile manufacturing. Furthermore, it causes the processes and methods that go into the making of handmade textiles to be overlooked and for the most part completely unrecognized.

If Cohen was familiar with the characteristics of handmade textiles he could have easily discerned that the pussyhats were handmade since they contain slight variations from each other, in color, shape, size, etc. The subtle qualities present handmade textiles are not just lost on Cohen, but to the many people who do not directly participate in the fiber-based crafts.

How can we make handmade textiles legible to a wider audience? I believe this predicament can be remedied by giving textiles some well-deserved attention. This text aims to show how handmade textiles exhibit specific qualities that differentiate them from their factory-made counterparts.

Throughout this project, I stress the significance of these features which have been largely overlooked in art and aesthetic theory. The formal qualities of handmade textiles have never been fully theorized. This lack of analysis can be attributed to the fact that textiles are objects that we interact with so intimately and frequently, we hardly stop to consider the methods that go into their making. Furthermore, mass10

Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies

Pages 6–7: Figure 1.1. Women’s March on Washington, Janurary 21, 2017.

Above: Figure 1.2. Tweet by Michael Cohen, Janurary 22, 2017.

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Introduction

Figure 1.3. Women knitting pussyhats.

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Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies

production has become so ubiquitous in the field of textile manufacture, handmade textiles are interacted with less frequently than in previous eras; fiber craft has become a niche practice. It is only through my own participation in the fiberbased crafts as a maker, that I have come to realize the aesthetic subtleties present in handmade textiles. But again, it is much more difficult to parse out formal elements in textiles if you are not familiar with fiber craft. Therefore, this text is written to introduce a wider audience—who may not be acquainted with fiber craft practice—to the formal elements present in textiles.

I define three terms that signal aesthetic and artistic strategies that I have found through my own participation with fiber craft and art: reproduction/translation, tedium, and collectivity. In order to establish these terms, I first address artists who use textiles in their work and then relate how their artistic strategies relate to vernacular craft projects. This process allows the vocabulary I set out to define to encompass both the artistic and the quotidian. By using the examples of artistic projects and vernacular crafts, this text aims to address the fiber-based crafts in an analytical and critical manner, exploring their aesthetic and artistic possibilities.

Most of the scholarship on textiles has focused on the history, practice, and function, of textiles, as well as what is regarded as the relationship of textiles to gender. However, there are only a few texts that focus on process as it pertains to textile practice. For instance, Elizabeth Wayland Barber’s book, Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years, touches upon the importance of becoming familiar with fiber craft processes in order to gain a deeper understanding of textiles from prehistoric times. In this text, she argues that much of women’s history has been lost because of the fugitive nature of cloth. Simply put, much of archaeological history has failed to account for women’s creative pursuits because textiles are much more susceptible to degradation than other mediums like pottery or 13

Introduction

metalwork.5 This text presents an exhaustive history of textiles from all over the world, but also provides new insights on how to rediscover textiles within an archaeological context. Barber investigates textiles fragments by remaking the surviving scraps in their entirety in order to understand the processes that went into making these ancient textiles and in doing so making new discoveries about their original purposes.

Learning the craft firsthand becomes especially important with prehistoric textiles because so few examples have survived over the years; theories require more than physical evidence alone.6 Barber advises that when initially forming hypotheses about ancient textiles it becomes imperative to explore the fragment completely by drawing it, counting it, mapping it, charting it, and ideally re-creating it.7 Barber underlines the importance of process in grasping the original purposes and historical significance of textiles, but her methodology focuses solely on textiles as anthropological case studies rather than exploring their aesthetic possibilities.

Theorist T’ai Smith gets closer to expanding upon a theory of textiles in her book, Bauhaus Weaving Theory, which dissects the writings and works produced by the women of the Bauhaus weaving workshop. In this book, Smith examines the essays and texts written by the Bauhaus weavers, mainly Anni Albers, Gunta Stözl, and Otti Berger. It was these women, among others, who not only began to experiment with the medium of weaving but made an effort to develop parameters and justify their woven objects.8 Through their writing, these women “explored weaving’s material elements, loom practice, and functional applications.”9 In short, the weavers of the Bauhaus attempted to create a modern practice of weaving which focused mainly on technical processes, material specificity, and its differences and similarities to other mediums.10 This exploration of weaving through the Bauhaus weaving workshop—which went through many different phases and changes of leadership—leads Smith 14

Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies

to conclude: What the medium of weaving and other forms of thread interlacing make visible, or rather tangible, in the end is their material stuff, their physicality as evidence of a practice—however inaccessible that practice is in the space of the cloth.11

This concluding sentence poignantly summarizes what my text aims to expand upon. Every textile—woven, knit, sewn, or otherwise—reflects the process of its making, or as Smith defines it, as its “evidence of a practice.”12 However, this aspect of textiles seems to be almost completely lost on contemporary audiences. This is mainly because to a large extent many people have lost touch with the production of textiles as a result of its large-scale mechanization, making them both ubiquitous and invariable. The aesthetic subtleties present in handmade textiles have become inaccessible to a wider public because we have lost our ability to recognize them, as seen by Cohen’s question about the Pussyhat Project. While Smith has opened new dialogues to consider modern textile practice via the Bauhaus weaving workshop, I propose to take this further and attempt to create a vocabulary that describes this “evidence of a practice” as it is present fiber art and the fiber-based crafts more broadly.

In this text, I will primarily address projects made by contemporary artists who use fiber craft techniques or textiles in their work. However, the emphasis in analyzing each project is placed on the material specificity of each work and how it advances each of their conceptual projects. Each example that I have selected demonstrates how the artists’ projects are rooted in a long-standing tradition of vernacular fiber craft. The modifier “vernacular” is used to describe traditional textile techniques that are concerned with the domestic or functional rather than the monumental, or that would usually be categorized as craft, rather than art. Using this term—instead of folk, domestic, or 15

Introduction

simply, craft—is an effort to distance textiles from these tired connotations. Much of the current research on the topic of textiles and fiber craft is concerned with their status as a “low art.” While this is a valid point and is wrapped up in complex relationships with constructions of gender and aesthetics, I hope to circumvent this standpoint and focus on their processes and material specificity.* Moreover, by evoking a term that is used in the well-established field of architecture, I aim to show that textiles can be studied and examined in an art historical context as well.13 Through visual and critical analysis, I define a small selection of aesthetic and artistic strategies which are rooted in vernacular fiber craft practices.

Each chapter opens with an in-depth conceptual and visual analysis of a project done by a single artist. Through this analysis, I consider two aspects of the artists’ use of fiber-craft or textiles: the use of fiber craft as an artistic strategy and the work’s aesthetic reception. Artistic strategy refers to the processes that go into making the work, while aesthetic reception points to the visual and formal aspects of the work. The second part of each chapter focuses on the term that best describes the processes that the artist uses and the work’s aesthetic outcome.

The three terms I have developed throughout the course of this project are: reproduction/translation, tedium, and collectivity.

These terms are meant be used interchangeably, both in describing the processes that went into making the work and the formal elements in the work. This is especially important in understanding the aim of this paper, which intends to show how, in fiber craft, process informs product just as much as product informs process. I find this to be crucial in creating a deeper understanding of the formal qualities fiber-based practices.

Much of what I will discuss is how fiber craft techniques inform *A full bibliography can be found at the end of this text which provides a selection of writings on the intersections between fiber craft and gender, the art and craft divide, and other topics which have informed my reserach on textiles and fiber craft.

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Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies

the conceptual projects of both the artwork and the vernacular object. However, I understand that knowing or being aware of these specific craft processes is not an accessible entry point for everyone. In fact, it is really only accessible to those who already actively participate in the fiber-based crafts. Therefore, I hope to show that through close-looking one can discern and recognize these processes, which, to a great extent, remain invisible.

By situating these terms as aesthetic qualifiers and artistic strategies, we begin to see how they emerge as concepts that inform the meaning of the work and how they relate to aspects of the fiber-based crafts specifically. This makes up the third and final section of each chapter, a thoughtful analysis of a vernacular object, based in the textile arts. Concluding with these analyses marks an effort to apply this specific aesthetic language to the handmade textile, which reflects the thesis of this text. It is in doing this that I hope I can open up an appreciation of vernacular, handmade textiles to a wider audience, not only through creating a vocabulary where there is none, but in giving an example as to how it can be done. The looseness of the terms I use to describe these processes and aesthetic elements reflect what I am striving to do: create a vocabulary that not only addresses textiles or fiber craft when they appear in art, but in vernacular fiber craft as well. Through these three steps (the analysis of the artwork, defining the aesthetic terminology, and applying it to the vernacular object) we can begin to see how the creation of a thoughtful language for textiles greatly benefits the work of contemporary fiber artists as well as the—mostly anonymous—craftspeople that have been practicing the textile arts for millennia.

The first chapter “Reproduction/Translation” examines a project made by the artist Elaine Reichek. In her project Tierra del Fuegians (1986–1987), she hand-knits large reproductions of ethnographic photographs of the indigenous people of Tierra 17

Introduction

del Fuego, an archipelago located in South America. I argue that she uses both reproduction and translation in her work, which informs the conceptual content of the series. I then relate this back to the vernacular craft of hand-knitting, as it appears on the popular knitting website Ravelry. The combined term reproduction/translation accounts for the unique aesthetic and conceptual intersections that occur when a reproduction is manipulated by the act of translation. The second chapter “Tedium” focuses on a project by the artist Anna Von Mertens titled As the Stars Go By (2006). In these pieces, Von Mertens uses star rotation software and hand-quilting techniques to render the night sky as it would have been during pivotal moments of violence in American history. I suggest the term tedium be used in order describe both the monotonous processes that go into making the pieces and the visual fatigue that is produced from viewing her work. I then show how this term can be extended to a large, cross-stitched sampler made in the nineteenth century by a young, English woman named Elizabeth Parker.

The content and methods used to make this sampler inform how tedium becomes a powerful artistic strategy and aesthetic element of the work. Finally, I examine the artist Marie Watt’s project, Blanket Stories (2014–2016). This project takes three different forms, but are all connected to the central theme of the well-used, household blanket. The pieces take the form of massive pillars that are made up of folded blankets which have been donated by people from surrounding communities where the pieces are installed. To describe the aesthetic and artistic strategies that appear in this piece I use the term collectivity, which accounts for the passive, but communal aspects of the project and how this is reflected in the formal qualities of the work. I connect this concept to the American tradition of the crazy quilt, specifically a quilt made by Henrietta Bryan Lambie in the nineteenth century, which also reflects these notions of collectivity. The examples I have chosen represent the use of the 18

Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies

artistic and aesthetic strategies I have listed and show how this language can be applied both to artistic projects and vernacular objects. This is not to say that these terms are strictly bound to these projects. In fact, if we were to explore all these examples in more depth we would see that there are large amounts of overlap between all the projects. For instance, tedium could be applied to Reichek’s work just as reproduction/translation could be applied to Von Mertens’. However, the purpose of this project is to give a well-founded introduction to each of these terms and how they stem from fiber craft practices. Therefore, I have decided to focus solely on applying one term per project.

Nevertheless, in order to provide some connecting tissue between each of the chapters I have implemented the use of an organizing object, which I have titled, Family Trees. This piece—a photo of which can be found on the fold-out cover of this text— is a collection of twelve hand-knit swatches each made by a woman in my family, myself included. A swatch, in this sense, is made at the beginning of a knitting project to determine that the knitter’s gauge matches the gauge of the pattern.

Often knitters need to change their needle size or adjust their tension in order to get the right gauge. A swatch signifies how the hand of the maker directly affects the final product, which is why I phrased my request as such. The only instructions I gave to each maker was that they should knit a swatch from a pattern I provided with size seven needles and worsted weight yarn. The sparse instructions were meant to allow the knitters to simply focus on making the swatch. It was my hope that this would allow for the hand of each maker come through the work. The pattern I chose, titled Twin Trees, was taken from the book Charted Knitting Designs by Barbara G. Walker (fig. 1.4). It is a simple cable-knit charted pattern worked over thirty-six stitches and that depicts two trees with intertwining branches.

I purposefully chose a pattern that had a distinct motif—rather than plain knitting—because I wanted there to be a visual 19

Introduction

Figure 1.4. Barbara G. Walker, Twin Trees in Charted Knitting Designs: A Third Treasury of Knitting Patterns.

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Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies

anchor throughout all the swatches. The large image of all the swatches together shows the minute differences between each piece when studied side-by-side. However, I have also included individual photos of each the swatches interspersed throughout the text, which provides the name of the maker and allows for a more thorough consideration of each swatch. The purpose of Family Trees and their reoccurring presence throughout the text is to show how all three of these terms—reproduction/ translation, tedium, and collectivity—can be applied to a single fiber craft project.

The goal of this text is not to provide a concrete or exhaustive aesthetics of textiles, but to start outlining a thoughtful and critical language that can be extended to both artworks and objects of fiber craft. The emphasis on how process informs aesthetic reception and vice versa, is key because textiles are innately bound to labor. Whether this is from the hand labor associated with “women’s work” or factory labor resulting from the Industrial Revolution and beyond, textiles will always point to their “evidence of a practice.” Although this is largely lost in most of our interactions with textiles, this text is an effort to open and make visible these processes that so often go unrecognized. It is my hope that in analyzing the work of fiber artists we can find a common language which values their use of fiber-craft and textiles as artistic strategies which ultimately contributes to the concept of the work. In extending this vocabulary to vernacular craft projects we can begin to see how they too contain aesthetic elements and deserve thoughtful analysis as well. With this in mind, we can begin this exploration into fiber art and vernacular fiber craft, which simultaneously aims to bring these features to light for people unfamiliar with them and to privilege the work of past and present fiber crafters, whose work has been neglected for so long.

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Elspeth Vance

Jenni Voorhees

Rose Voorhees

Emilie Long

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Reproduction/Translation

E

laine Reichek is an artist whose work is largely based on her own participation with the fiber-based crafts.

In her project, Tierra del Fuegians (1986–87), she hand-knits large reproductions of ethnographic photographs from the early twentieth century (fig. 2.1). It is a complex and multilayered project, which stems from Reichek’s historical research of the Fuegians. The basis of the work originates from a set of 1,200 photographs taken by the German Jesuit missionary and anthropologist, Martin Güsinde, between 1919 and 1924.1 The photographs are portraits taken of the people indigenous to Tierra del Fuego, an archipelago located in the southern tip of South America. Traditionally, the Fuegians wore little in the way of clothing; instead they painted their bodies with oil and lit large fires to keep warm. By the time Güsinde reached Tierra del Fuego the Fuegians were on the verge of extinction as a result of illness and disease brought from their first contact with the Spanish in 1520.2 The photographs act as an anthropological effort, on Güsinde’s behalf, to document a dying culture. The images alone are powerful, Güsinde’s portraits of the Fuegians adorned in ceremonial body paint and masks are striking against the sparse backgrounds (fig. 2.2). Each photo is accompanied by a vague caption that briefly describes the significance of the costume, but sheds very little light on the actual culture itself. Christine Barthe, one of the authors of the book, The Lost Tribes of Tierra Del Fuego, describes Güsinde’s portraits of the Fuegians as a, “composite picture that may be fragmentary and incomplete, with certain keys that are lost, but one that is remarkably open to interpretations to come.”3 29

Reproduction/Translation

This statement may have some truth to it, but to argue that the historic ambiguity of these photographs allows them to be interpreted openly raises questions about how the photographs function more broadly. What information is passed on to the viewer through these portraits? And more importantly, what information is lost? These are the questions that Reichek confronts in her project, Tierra del Fuegians. The artist’s interventions and use of fiber craft suggest the complications of one culture documenting another and what plays out in these interactions.

Tierra del Fuegians is a series that consists of eleven separate pieces which all hold to the same conceptual project. Reichek’s process largely informs the final product of the work. First, she enlarges the photographs to nearly life sized. This makes the photos, which were made for anthropological and ethnographic purposes, take on another life. The viewer is confronted with these figures face to face, rather than stumbling across them in archival research. She then makes her own interventions by making vibrant markings on some, but not all, of the enlarged photographs. For instance, in the piece titled, Yellow Men, she uses yellow and white paint to supplement the original markings on the figure (fig. 2.3). However, she is not using color to restore the photograph as it would have appeared to Güsinde, but using it at random. We know this because the caption for the source photo is: “Matan’s body and conical mask are painted with red ochre.”4 Therefore, the most prominent color in the photo would not have been yellow or even white, but a deep red. Undoubtedly, Reichek came across this caption in her research on this photograph and chose to ignore it. Reichek’s painted intervention signals that the artist is intentionally misreading these photographs and in doing so, commenting on their legibility.

The final step that goes into making these pieces, is creating one or more hand-knit replicas of the subject or subjects 30

Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies

Page 26–27: Figure 2.1. Elaine Reichek, Tierra Del Fuegians, installation, Carlo Lamagna Gallery, New York, NY, 1989.

Previous Page: Figure 2.2. Martin Güsinde, The Shoort spritis Télil, representing the sky of rain (northern sky) and Shénu, represnting the sky of wind (western sky), ca. 1919–1924.

Above: Figure 2.3. Elaine Reichek, Yellow Men, 1986, knitted wool yarn, acrylic on plaster, and oil on gelatin silver print, 71 x 115 in.

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Reproduction/Translation

Figure 2.4. Elaine Reichek, Masked Men, 1986, knitted wool yarn, acrylic on plaster, and hand-painted gelatin silver print, 165 x 78 in.

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Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies

pictured in the photograph. They are each hung on the wall, adjacent to the life-sized, pictorial counterparts. This last step is especially significant. The large, knitted reproductions of the Fuegians give substance and dimension to these flat images.

However, they also reflect the artist’s intention to misinterpret the original content and in doing so signal to the viewer that these images should not be taken at face value. Each knitted body is slightly different than the subject in the photo. Their stances are faintly different and the painted, now knitted, marks on their bodies have been changed. These changes are present in all the knitted works to varying degrees; some resemble their photographic counterpart much more closely, while others are distinctly different. In addition to these minor changes, all the hand-knit pieces are knitted in black and with another accompanying color—such as red, blue, yellow, white, or gray—although the original photographs remain in grayscale.

Reichek comments on her use of color in the artist statement for the series: I deliberately misread the body-paint pictographs as abstract designs and chose colors long associated with modernist painting—red, yellow, blue, and gray—in place of the original colors, which already had been abstracted as gray tones in the black-and-white photographs.5

By using colors that are associated with an artistic cannon that is geographically and temporally distant from the Fuegians, leads us to further question the legibility of these photographs.

These steps—apart from painting directly on the photograph which is only present in Yellow Men, Feather Man, Striped Man, and Tent Man—are used throughout the series to create eleven works in total.

As we can see, each step of the process that Reichek utilizes to make these pieces further distorts and distances the original subject from the final product. The artist describes how her process reflects her intentions: 33

Reproduction/Translation

Repainting the Fuegian patterns on my reproductions of the photographs is a way of signaling the potential of images of foreign cultures to become foils for the fantasies of their viewers…The formal translation from photograph to knitting echoes the way information is passed between languages and shaped by them in different ways.6

Masked Men, is one piece from this series that clearly illustrates what she is trying to convey through this process (fig. 2.4). The enlarged photograph contains two figures, wearing conical masks and covered in body paint. There are three knitted figures, two on the right side of the image and one more on the left. In scanning the image of the installation, they all look visually similar in form and color. However, when examined more closely the differences in their poses and markings become clear. The stance of each knitted figure does not match the stances taken by the subjects in the photographs. Furthermore, none of the markings on the knitted replicas match the ones in the original portraits. Therefore, these hand-knit reproductions signal to the viewer that they are not intended to be a facsimile, but an artistic interpretation or translation. The quote taken from Reichek is especially apt here, allowing the viewer to identify how hand-knitting can act as a vessel to illustrate, “the way information is passed between languages and shaped by them in different ways.”7 The translation between materials and medium, photograph to knit object, creates a visual metaphor of the translation of languages and ideas.

By looking at Reichek’s project in its entirety we can see that there are certain elements that are meant to make us step back and read these images and their hand-knit counterparts in specific ways. The viewer is meant to question the authority of the original image by recognizing the disparities between the photograph and the hand-knit copies. There are several artistic strategies working together to create these works. First, there is the process of reproducing the Fuegians’ bodies by using the 34

Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies

enlarged photograph as a pattern or template in order to make the knitted replica. Then, the translation of these reproductions from one form to another through the process of hand-knitting, but also in the use of color and altering the bodies’ postures and stances. What is the best way to address this processes that Reichek demonstrated in her work? Here I would like to assert the combined term, reproduction/translation, to describe both the process and aesthetic reception of works that contain both elements. Reproduction as an action implies making a copy of something, while translation indicates the conversion of something from one medium or form to another. Although either of these actions can function as stand-alone artistic strategies, I find that there are more fruitful intersections when reproduction and translation are used in the combinatory sense. The slash between the two terms is used in place of the Latin preposition cum meaning “combined with.” This becomes an important modifier because it highlights the artistic and aesthetic possibilities when reproduction and translation are used collaboratively.

Reproduction/translation is the artistic strategy that exemplifies what Reichek has done in this project. However, it is also present in the aesthetic reception of the work, as we saw through the visual analysis of the project, reproduction/ translation surfaces in the formal elements of the work, such as color and figure. Reichek deliberately toys with the strategies of reproduction and translation to illustrate the complications of investigating cultures through the historical lens of colonial projects, as in seen in Güsinde’s photos, that devastatingly effected the indigenous populations of Latin America. Consequentially, these photographs are all that is left of the Fuegians. Viewing them in the context of reproduction/ translation alerts the viewer to the consequences of learning about a culture solely through ethnographic photographs, which ultimately skew and perhaps misrepresent the culture 35

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as a whole. The act of reproducing and translating these figures through hand-knitting underlines the fact that this culture is solely remembered by these photographic reproductions that for the most part are lost in translation.

Translation is a complex concept that has been explored by many theorists in many different contexts. One of the most recognized texts on translation was written by the twentiethcentury theorist, Walter Benjamin. His theory on translation is an apt example of how I am eliding reproduction/translation, because in his essay, “The Task of the Translator,” he remarks on both reproduction and translation in reference to translating a literary work. In this essay he first observes that bad translations often stem from a translator being too loyal to the original content, “it is self-evident how greatly fidelity in reproducing the form impedes the rendering of the sense.”8 He goes on to assert that a good translation should instead of, “resembling the meaning of the original, must lovingly and in detail incorporate the original’s mode of signification.”9 The task of the translator is to express the intent of the original, “not as reproduction, but as harmony.”10 As Benjamin maintains, translation is a complex, imperfect action, where the translator must change and formulate the original into a coexisting counterpart, rather than faithful reproduction.

However, this is just one take on translation theory. Since this essay was published there has been an enormous amount research and further investigation into this field, specifically in looking at translation through the lens of colonialism. Postcolonial translation theory is important to bring up here not only in extending the concept of translation, but understanding that it is not a neutral act. In the introduction for the book PostColonial Translation: Theory and Practice Susan Bassnett and Harish Trivedi address this: Translation does not happen in a vacuum, but in a continuum; it is not an isolated act, it is part of an ongoing process 36

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of intercultural transfer. Moreover, translation is a highly manipulative activity that involves all kinds of stages in that process of transfer across linguistic and cultural boundaries.11

From this understanding we can see how the translator does more than just translate, but transform and manipulate. Furthermore, Bassnett and Trivedi address how for a long time, “the original was perceived as being de facto superior to the translation, which was relegated to the position of being merely a copy.”12 They expand on this by asserting that the invention of the original is conincides with early colonial expansion. Therefore, the idea of the original item holding greater importance over the translation can be traced to colonial power structures.13 There are several layers added to translation as an action when approaching it through post-colonial methodologies that need to be kept in mind when exploring it as a concept.

Although Benjamin, Bassnett, and Trivedi are addressing the written word in their respective texts, how can this concept be broadened to be applied to translation in material practices?

This is answered in part by a comment Reichek made describing the relationship between translation and her own body of work: Translation is not only a basic process for me—I’m always translating information from one form into another—but it’s also a basic interest of mine. In retrospect, I realize that translation has been a constant in my work. In the ’80s, I was remaking different kinds of architecture in knitting, or as knitting patterns—I wanted to see how these buildings and dwellings changed meaning when they were realized in a radically different medium.14

What interests her, is not creating exact reproductions of the architectural structures, or the bodies of Fuegians, but reproducing and translating them through different materials and processes. As we can see through Benjamin, to methodically reproduce does not do justice to the original work nor the translation. Furthermore, most prominently seen in 37

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Figure 2.5. Ravelry page for St. Brigid sweater by Alice Starmore.

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Tierra del Fuegians, Reichek performativity plays the role of the translator, mistranslating the bodies of the Fuegians, who were victims of colonialism themselves. This action also shows how the translation can sometimes offer more than the original, since it is through intervening with translations that we begin to see how these photographs are part of a dubious historical narrative. Translating adds an extra layer to reproduction which when used together and ultimately advances the conceptual project of a work. However, can these same methods be applied to the making and viewing of vernacular fiber craft practices?

In many ways, to craft is to copy, through pattern, design, or technique. Therefore, reproduction plays a large role in many of the fiber-based crafts. The most common entry point into fiber craft is finding and following a pattern. The pattern provides the maker with instructions, material suggestions, and design motifs in order to create the intended garment or object. If the maker has followed all the instructions exactly they will have reproduced the item that the pattern has advertised.

However, the act of reproducing is hinged upon the maker’s own translation of the pattern. The knitting website Ravelry perfectly demonstrates the many facets of reproduction/ translation that are found in hand-knitting. Ravelry is a website made with the worldwide community of knitters, crocheters, spinners, and weavers, in mind. There are currently 6,962,903 registered Ravelry users, with that number growing every day.15 The website serves as a place where these makers can find patterns, post finished or on-going projects, catalog their needles and yarn, and connect with each other. Above all it is a crowdsourcing site for knitting and other fiber crafts; the sheer amount of users make it so that patterns and other resources are consistently up-to-date. Therefore, Ravelry has become a rich resource in finding, researching, and planning fiber craft projects.

One of the most useful aspects of Ravelry is being able to 40

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look at the finished projects posted by other users. For instance, one immensely popular pattern is for the Aran sweater, St. Brigid, originally designed by Alice Starmore. The page for this pattern contains 718 projects started by other Ravelry users, 422 of which are marked as finished (fig. 2.5). Almost every project is accompanied with a photograph of the finished piece, what type of yarn they used, and any notes about the pattern or how they changed it. What is so interesting about this collection of projects is that although they all stem from the same exact pattern, none of them are quite the same. You can see this differences by looking at three sweaters from this enormous sampling (fig. 2.6). The first and most obvious aspect that differentiates them from each other is color; one is white, while one is a bright violet, and another a dark green.

The original pattern does not call for a specific color that this sweater should be knit it, but choosing and changing color, as we saw in Tierra del Fuegians, is the most noticeable aspects of reproduction/translation. Then, there are design choices that were made by the maker that were not stated in the pattern.

The pattern called for fringe at the bottom edge, but none these sweaters have fringe and the makers instead has opted for no or a different type of decoration. Looking closely at these three sweaters again, you can see that each have chosen a different way to knit the bottom edge. The white one has the braided motif, the purple one has nothing, and the green one elected for a simple rib. This sweater, and its large following on Ravelry, is an interesting case study in exploring reproduction/translation in fiber craft because it shows the variety of products that can stem from the same pattern. It is fascinating to see how the urge to reproduce a pattern is hinged on the maker’s translation of the object to their own tastes. As we can see reproduction/ translation becomes a large component in hand-knitting.

As seen in the crowdsourced sweaters on Ravelry, the most apparent differences that stem from the strategy of 41

Reproduction/Translation

Figure 2.6. Three sweaters knit from the St. Brigid pattern. Made by Ravely users Dicksie, josiane, and yrode.

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reproduction/translation in knitting are mainly in color and design. However, there are also small, minute differences that take place in the reproduction/translation of handmade textiles.

Here I would like to refer to Family Trees, the project that I presented as the organizing object for this text. For this project, I asked the women in my family, myself included, to knit the exact same swatch. The only instructions I gave them was to use worsted weight wool, size seven needles, and to approach it as they usually would if they were knitting a swatch for a project.

The sparse instructions were meant to enable them to knit how they normally would and not overthink the assignment, but the instructions were also an effort to make sure that there was consistency across the individual pieces. However, the swatches I received back revealed to me that reproduction/translation in hand-knitting goes far deeper than just differences in color or design. Each swatch—although all connected by the tree motif and knit with the same needle size and wool weight—contains minute differences. The tension of the knitting is unique to each piece; no two swatches are identical. This shows how the hand of the maker is present even when yarn type and design are accounted for. Furthermore, it illustrates that how the artistic strategy of reproduction/translation is so deeply ingrained in fiber crafts like hand-knitting. Extending this artistic strategy to vernacular craft practice, demonstrates the aesthetic subtleties present in hand-knitting. Reproduction/translation is just a start in creating a language around practices which are given very little attention. Thinking of reproduction/translation as an artistic strategy and recognizing it in the aesthetics of a work, not only creates a vocabulary for textiles that fall into the quotidian, but can be extended to artworks and create a deeper understanding of how these processes reflect and complicate the concept of the work.

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Jessica Powers

Eleanor “Dittie” Weinel

Ivy Vance

Kathryn Greenwood Swanson

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A

nna Von Mertens is a contemporary fiber artist who makes use of conventional quilting techniques in her studio practice. As the Stars Go By is a series in which Von Martens uses handmade quilts to memorialize momentous events in American history, specifically ones that involve pivotal acts of violence (fig. 3.1). Von Mertens chooses these events based on their significance as crucial turning points within American culture, such as Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination or the beginning of the second Iraq War. She then uses calculation software to generate the rotation of the stars during the time of the event.1 This depiction of the stars’ movement is then rendered by the artist on large black sheets of cloth using various hues of hand-dyed, light colored thread.

At a glance, the panels look like delicate, geometric patterns, but when examined closely the contrast of the discrete quilting stitches on the black fabric becomes clear (fig. 3.2). The panels transform into separate celestial skies, with far too many stars to count. The series consists of nine panels, all with slight variations, but nearly identical in form and process. Although each piece is slightly different, the artist is obviously not interested in showing a great contrast. Instead, the focus is on creating a visual similarity which forces the viewer to engage with the project on a deeper level.

Each piece in the series is named based on the time, date, location, and the direction in which the event took place. For instance, the piece that depicts the stars’ position at the start of the second war between Iraq and the United States is titled, 5:34 am until sunrise, March 20, 2003, Baghdad, Iraq (from the Palestine Hotel looking toward the Presidential Palace on the 51

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Tigris River) (fig. 3.3). Or the piece that depicts the stars as Christopher Columbus would have seen them as he approached the Americas is titled, Midnight until the first sighting of land, October 12, 1492, six miles off the coast of current day San Salvador Island, Bahamas (fig. 3.4). This naming convention is consistent throughout the series. And while it is sheds light on what the piece represents, it does not necessarily create difference within the work. Not only are all the pieces visually similar, but the structure of their titles is exactly the same. This lack of differentiation provides the series with an underlying uniformity; going from piece to piece becomes monotonous.

But to pick through the formal differences of each piece is not the purpose of this project, instead the viewer is invited to step back and contemplate the message of the series as a whole. In recognizing this, the viewer’s participation with these pieces— and therefore, pivotal acts of violence in American history— shifts to a new mode of engagement, one that a uniform work like this produces. If the pieces were unabstracted or figurative depictions of these events, it would most likely engender a sense of guilt or shame from the viewer. Instead, these largely unvaried, monochromatic panels allow for pause, and let the observer to reflect on their own participation as actor and/or bystander within this host of historical events. By creating a series that is visually and thematically homogenous, Von Mertens’ encourages the viewer to contemplate the consequences of these events while locating their own position within them.

Although the formal similarities allow for the viewer to contemplate these works at a distance, close-looking reveals another important aspect of the project: the hand-stitching of each black panel. To see the delicate stitching one must stand extremely close to each piece. At this close distance, the individual stitches become visible. Some are only as thick as a single thread; others are made up of multiple layers of 52

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Pages 48–49: Figure 3.1. Anna Von Mertens, As the Stars Go By, installation, Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2006.

Previous Page: Figure 3.2. Detail from 5:34 am until sunrise, March 20, 2003, Baghdad, Iraq (from the Palestine Hotel looking toward the Presidential Palace on the Tigris River).

Above: Figure 3.3. Anna Von Mertens, 5:34 am until sunrise, March 20, 2003, Baghdad, Iraq (from the Palestine Hotel looking toward the Presidential Palace on the Tigris River), 2006, hand-stitched cotton, 41 x 97 1/2 in.

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Figure 3.4. Anna Von Mertens, Midnight until the first sighting of land, October 12, 1492, six miles off the coast of current day San Salvador Island, Bahamas, 2006, hand-stitched cotton, 41 x 97 1/2 in.

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thread stacked on top of each other to create the appearance of a thicker line. Through this small intervention on black fabric, the artist has carefully stitched the movement of the stars across the night sky. It is at this distance that the hand of the maker becomes present especially when considering how long it would have taken to hand-stitch one of these eight by four foot panels in its entirety. Here it is important to note the artistic choice in hand-stitching these pieces, rather than using a sewing machine, which could have attained a similar visual effect with greater expediency. In these pieces Von Mertens uses traditional hand-quilting techniques. This type of quilting consists of using a small needle to sew a running stitch by hand, which secures the three layers of the quilt: the quilt top, the batting or stuffing in the middle, and the backing. It is a laborious process but is central to the artist’s process in almost all her work. In fact, this aspect of the work is so important to the artist that the only material listed for these pieces is “hand stitched cotton.” It becomes clear that the lengthy act of handstitching is crucial to understanding the conceptual framework of these pieces.

This artistic intervention calls into question the original intention of the piece, while simultaneously situating the deliberate actions of the maker. In her own words, Von Mertens describes this project as, “a memorial, as an actual vantage from a specific moment in history, but ultimately I am simply documenting an impassive cycle that is oblivious to the human violence below.”2 This quote summarizes what the artist is striving for in this series, a sincere memorial, which is directly reflected in her process. In making this series, Von Mertens would only work on one piece at a time, at which point she would immerse herself into learning more about the event that she was commemorating. For instance, while she was making the panel concerning the Tet Offensive, she watched the entirety of the thirteen-hour, PBS documentary on the Vietnam War.3 55

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Furthermore, she does not employ any help in completing these projects, which according to the artist, is because her work is about, “digesting ideas, contemplation, [and] placing oneself at the center of an idea and moving through it.”4 As we can see, the intention of the work is reflected in its making, the slowness of the stitching is mirrored by the slow, ever-moving night sky.

The fact that each panel is intended to memorialize an event— and that she only works on one piece at a time—imbues each piece with reverence and sincerity towards its subject.

Clearly, there are features in As the Stars Go By that are intended to make the viewer participate with the work in a certain way, in particular, the visual uniformity and the slow process that goes into making each panel, made apparent by the hand-stitching. But how do we name these aesthetic and artistic strategies? Cultural theorist Sianne Ngai identifies part of this aesthetic phenomenon in her book, Ugly Feelings. She coins the term stuplimity, which refers to paradoxical combination of shock—grounded in the Kantian notion of the sublime— and boredom that a repetitive work produces. She states, “the shocking and the boring prompt us to look for new strategies of affective engagement and to extend the circumstances under which engagement becomes possible.”5 She goes on to argue that, “many of the most ‘shocking,’ innovative, and transformative cultural productions in history have also been deliberately tedious ones.”6 What exactly does she mean by this? Ngai applies the notion of stuplimity to the artist Gerhard Richter, specifically his project Atlas, which comprises of a vast display of newspaper clippings, photographs, and sketches that the artist has collected since the 1960s (fig. 3.5). The items are arranged on a sparse background of white paper which are then installed uniformly to cover the gallery walls. However, it would be impossible for the viewer to engage with each photo—or even each panel for that matter—in the same way that they could if only a single item was presented. In this case, the sheer number 56

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Figure 3.5. Gerhard Richter, Atlas, installation, Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, Dresden, DE, 2012. Photo: David Brandt.

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of items overwhelms the viewer, which initially feels like shock, but then quickly fades into an exhaustive state of fatigue. This creates its own aesthetic, which taxes the observer’s “capacity for conceptually synthesizing or metabolizing information.”7 In other words, the amount of information presented in a tedious work overwhelms the viewer causing them to experience both the awe associated with the sublime and the mundane feeling of boredom.

The presence of the shocking and the boring within a work points to the aesthetic that is produced from the visual uniformity of Von Mertens’ pieces. However, I propose that the viewer has a choice in extending this mode of engagement further than Ngai’s construction of stuplimity. The initial shock produced from the overwhelming homogeneity of the panels in As the Stars Go By, combined with the countless number stitches that make up each panel, first elicit a feeling of shock which quickly transforms into boredom in recognizing the repetitive and monotonous process that goes into the production of the pieces. However, at this point I urge the viewer to recognize how the boring, the mundane, and the tedious, are central to the concept of the work. Thus, adding a third step to the initial shock and boredom reflected in Ngai’s construction stuplimity which critically reconsiders the temporal aspects that went into making the piece. Identifying and engaging with the prolonged but purposeful process of hand-stitching ideally reinstates a renewed sense of awe in the viewer. How can we best describe these intersecting artistic and aesthetic strategies that are found in this series? Here, I would like to assert the term tedium, which not only points to the feeling of boredom that might arise in the viewing the object, but also in recognizing the monotonous process of its making.

In my experience, a piece that truly reflects tedium initially shocks me, bores me, and then shocks me again. When I am confronted with a project like Von Mertens’ the aesthetic 58

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response of shock is first prompted when I recognize the tedious and repetitive action of hand-stitching used in the piece along with the realization of the violent content that these handstitched panels are meant to portray. Then, I am overcome with a sense of fatigue as I put myself in the position of the artist and her tedious process. Finally, I am again filled with shock and a new sense of awe when I recognize the time put into the work along with the skillfulness, expertise, and endurance on the part of the maker. In the case of the panels featured in As the Stars Go By, the aesthetic and artistic strategy of tedium instills this extended sense of stuplimity, while subtly pointing to the conceptual framework of the piece, that is, ruminating on and digesting these violent historical moments. Therefore, the features of tedium are two-fold, they exist both in the making of the work and in the perceptual experience. Tedium as an artistic strategy aims to show how the processes that goes into making a piece can, to some extent, dictate its aesthetic reception. Conversely, when tedium is present in the aesthetic reception of an object it can lead the viewer to recognize the artistic strategies used to make the piece. Identifying both entry points allows the viewer to engage with this notion tedium more deeply. Although tedium can appear in all types of works, as we saw with Richter’s Atlas, there is a unique relationship between tedium and the fiber-based crafts.

Tedium permeates the aesthetics of handmade textiles.

Despite the fact that since the Industrial Revolution there have been many developments in technology surrounding the mass production of textiles, the methods of making textiles by hand have changed very little over time; they continue to be timeconsuming, monotonous processes. Although advancements have been made throughout time, no matter what new timesaving devices are put into practice fiber craft will always reflect, as Anni Albers attests to in her canonical text On Weaving, “building a whole out of small parts—a process that 59

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is time consuming by its very nature.”8 The fiber-based crafts— weaving, knitting, quilting, etc.—largely reflect tedium as an aesthetic and artistic strategy. Handmaking textiles consists of small repetitive actions to create a fabric or object. Whether this is through the hand-stitching of a quilt or hand-knitting a sweater, the recognition of the single stitch informs the viewer that it took many small units to create a whole. The result of the handmade textile will always reflect its making: the tedious repetition of a single action. Again, we are reminded of Ngai’s construction of stuplimity, the aesthetic reception of shock and boredom. Shock—in realizing the number of stiches present in a single piece—which fades to fatigue in recognizing the tiresome work that went into making it. But how can recognizing the tedious nature of a work be extended to a newfound shock which causes the viewer to understand and engage with handmade textiles in a new way? By participating in the aesthetic of tedium, through feelings of shock and boredom we can see the role tedium plays in fiber craft.

Although the stitch frequently remains invisible to the inattentive eye, it is in naming it now that I hope we can begin to see the assets of tedium as a contributing factor to the aesthetics of handmade textiles. As we saw in Von Mertens’ panels, the tedious, repetitive work that goes into making these pieces allows the artist to fully realize her conceptual project. However, in recognizing tedium the viewer is alerted to the prolonged amount of time it took for the artist or maker to complete the work. Duration becomes a key aspect of tedium when used as an artistic strategy. The tedious work cannot be completed in a day, but takes weeks or months to finish. Fiber craft specifically emerges as a medium that is doubly tedious in its reception and in its making. Tedium becomes a useful term in recognizing the temporal aspects of a piece, which can then be identified in the object’s viewing. However, its use is not limited to artists who use the fiber-based crafts in their work, 60

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but can be applied to vernacular fiber craft practices as well.

There are so many tedious projects in the fiber-based crafts that choosing just one is difficult. However, Elizabeth Parker’s Sampler (ca. 1830), housed in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, exemplifies how tedium appears as an aesthetic and artistic strategy in the vernacular object (fig. 3.6).

Although this piece is titled “sampler,” it is for lack of a better term, since its content is vastly different than what you would find in a typical sampler. Traditionally, samplers were required from girls at a young age to prove their handle of needlework, such as cross-stitch, needlepoint, and embroidery. Rozsika Parker states in her book, The Subversive Stitch, that, “by the 17th century samplers were becoming educational exercises in stitchery...They provided evidence of a child’s ‘progress’ on the ladder to womanhood.”9 Not only did the practice of needlework prove their prowess over the skill, but it became a crucial part of a young women’s domestic education. Typically, a sampler would include the maker’s name, an alphabet, numbers, a proverb, and a visual motif (fig. 3.7). However, by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, American and English samplers began to favor text over image. Sampler makers began to stitch longer proverbs, psalms, and Bible passages (fig. 3.8).10 At a distance, Parker’s work could pass as one of these text-heavy samplers, but when examined closer, it is clearly very different from a typical sampler taken from the same period.

When viewing the large image of Parker’s Sampler one can distinguish the formal elements at work. It is made up of red silk thread which has been cross-stitched onto white linen. When viewed in its entirety, the visual uniformity is astonishing.

Stitched completely in the same color, with no variations, the evenness of the lines of text is impressive. Except for the slight variations in line spacing, it looks as if it were set with a letter press. Viewing the sampler in its totality is overwhelming, especially when you realize that the uniform lines of text were 61

Figure 3.6. Elizabeth Parker, Sampler, ca. 1830, linen, embroidered with red silk in cross-stitch, 29 x 33 in.

Tedium

Figure 3.7. Anne Hart, Sampler (England), 1740, silk embroidery on wool foundation, 12 3/16 x 8 11/16 in.

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Figure 3.8. Sophia Stebbins, Sampler, 1831, silk embroidery on linen foundation, 10 1/8 in x 8 7/8 in.

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carefully hand-stitched by the maker. Unlike the content of a typical sampler from the same period, this piece dictates the sorrows and suffering of a young woman from Sussex, England, sixteen or seventeen years old at the time of making.11 It is a tactile autobiography, that takes the form in the only medium the maker felt comfortable writing her life’s story, the sampler.

The first line of the text reads: As i [sic] cannot write I put this down simply and freely as I might speak to a person to whose intimacy and tenderness I can fully intrust [sic] myself and who I know will bear with all my weaknesses.12

The text goes on to chronicle her past, coming from a large, poor family. At the age of thirteen she left to go work as a nursemaid, but was abused by her various employers stating at one point, “they treated me with cruelty too horrible to mention.”13 Instead of a practice in rote memorization, dutifully stitching patterns and letters, this sampler takes the form of a confession, a suicide note, and a prayer. The last line asks God for forgiveness, but ends on a somber note, “How can such repentance as mine be sincere What will become of my soul.”14 Anne Sebba writes in her book, Samplers: Five Centuries of Gentle Craft, that the, “study of English and American samplers can still lead one to intimate knowledge of the embroideress concerned. Few other objects tell us as much about their makers.”15 This statement becomes abundantly clear in the tragic tale stitched by Parker, which is made even more potent by the tedious medium of cross-stitch, which it was written in.

The aspects of tedium that are present in Von Mertens’ work are also exhibited in this sampler. Again, the contradictory experience of shock and boredom resonates within this work.

Not only is the amount of text in this sampler overwhelming, but the story that the text tells is a shocking one. However, once the viewer begins to parse out the narrative of this sad tale, a sense of boredom emerges. This is largely because there 66

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Figure 3.9. Elizabeth Parker, detail of Sampler, ca. 1830.

is no punctuation and very little sentence structure within the writing, which makes the text difficult to scan. Not to mention the sheer amount of text written makes reading the entire piece tiresome. However, by actively engaging with this feeling of tedium, one can begin to see how it is central to the author’s message. Each letter has been carefully cross-stitched into the fabric, which means that Parker counted each of the horizontal and vertical threads in the weave of the main fabric, to make sure that each letter and line was uniform in size and appearance (fig. 3.9). This is no small task, especially when considering that the text comprises of 6,427 individual characters. Furthermore, the decoration that each capital letter is given, shows us the tedious attention to detail that was given in making this piece.

After recognizing these factors, the feeling of boredom, turns again into shock and awe. In fully realizing the immensity of this undertaking by the maker, we can see how tedium is harnessed and used as a mode of aesthetic engagement.

When considering the use of cross-stitch another aspect 67

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of the work that comes to light is time. How much time did it take Parker to complete this sampler? There are no records, but we can guess that it would have taken weeks, if not months, for a working girl to complete such a large work, of forty-six lines and measuring twenty-nine inches wide and thirty-three inches high. Therefore, the time spent stitching this story becomes a key part of the work. A remark that Von Mertens made about her own work applies to the effort put into this piece as well: “pouring labor into an object gives it weight, substance, importance, care.�16 This quote aptly describes how tedium as an artistic strategy imbues the work with a reverence based on all the labor that went into completing it. Although the text in this piece seems like it was written as a stream of consciousness, every word, down to the letter, was carefully picked and then stitched by the author. This is what makes the work so unique as a piece of writing and a sampler. The amount of time reflects the amount of thought and care the maker had towards the subject, in this case her memoir. Through this tedious process, Parker chose to tirelessly relive these painful experiences, which only gives more weight and honesty to these words.

Tedious, boring, and monotonous are words that are often used when describing work that is uninspiring and routine. They are terms that are not often associated with artistic or creative practices. However, the tedious project does stimulate interest within viewers. In an interview I conducted with Anna Von Mertens she said that the first question she is always asked after a lecture is how long her quilted works took to complete.17 Ngai, recognized this lack of discourse and ventured to define how the boring work can create new modes of engagement. Similarly, I aim to highlight tedium as an aesthetic and artistic strategy within fiber craft practices, because in many ways they act as a staging ground for this type of conceptual engagement. The tedious aspects in an object commonly go unnoticed because 68

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they are most present during the production of an object. I only have come to recognize the tedious work that goes into making handmade textiles because of my own participation within the fiber-based crafts. However, it is in opening these processes and making visible the labor and time that goes into handmaking textiles that I hope to create a dialogue between material process and concept. The Family Trees emblemize tedium in their own way as well. Although only small, hand-knit swatches, each person was required to carefully read the pattern, count out the individual rows and stitches, and execute these repetitive actions, albeit at a smaller scale than pieces discussed in this chapter. Nonetheless, I look at these swatches and see the time that each person put into their swatch; I recognize each stitch as a distinct unit that is the result of the repetitive action of the knitting. When viewed together the repetitive motif of the intertwined trees allows the viewer to contemplate the minute differences between each swatch and consider the aspects of tedium as an aesthetic and artistic strategy. The slow process of making, which is intrinsic to handmade textiles, has always been and will always be present, but only if the viewer choses to engage with it. It is only from my own participation with the fiber-based crafts, as a viewer and a maker, that I have learned to dispense with the notion of quick results and master tedium.

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Margaret Vance

Madeline ffitch

Jana ffitch

Becky ffitch

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B

lanket Stories is a multilayered project by the contemporary fiber artist Marie Watt that takes several different forms. There have been three iterations of the Blanket Stories project to date: Transportation Object, Generous Ones, Trek (2014) commissioned by the Tacoma Art Museum in Tacoma, Washington; Textile Society, R.R. Stewart, Ancient One (2016) made for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan; and, Talking Stick, Works Progress, Steward (2016) which resides in the High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon. Each of these subtitles relates to interpersonal aspects of where the work is displayed.

For instance, “generous ones” refers to the Puyallup, the people indigenous to Tacoma, whose name translates to “generous and welcoming behavior to all people (friends and strangers) who enter our lands.”1 The title of the statue that resides in Pakistan alludes to the early Muslim world which has been described by some scholars as a “textile society.”2 Although each of these projects takes a slightly different form, they are connected by the primary material used: blankets and more specifically, used blankets. Reclaimed and donated blankets make up the backbone of Watt’s textile practice. Her fascination with these highly personal items is detailed in her artist statement for the project, “blankets are everyday objects. We take them for granted, yet as we use them, they quietly record our histories: a lumpy shape, a worn binding, mended patches. Every blanket holds a story.”3 This statement is the foundation of her work, the story that the quotidian object tells without us immediately knowing it. In the several iterations of the project, Blanket Stories, Watt uses the strength of the collective to create aesthetically powerful objects and give voice to these intimate 77

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textiles that have no voice of their own.

Each of the works that come out of these projects is slightly different, but they all start from the same form: monumental pillars composed of folded and stacked, donated blankets made of wool and other natural fibers. Transportation Object, Generous Ones, Trek, is an outdoor sculpture where two pillars of blankets have been cast in bronze and arch towards and rest on the Tacoma Art Museum (fig. 4.1 and 4.2). Watt writes that casting this statue in bronze was not only practical, but conceptual. By using bronze, she means to memorialize these everyday objects in a medium that has been historically reserved for grandiose statues of important figures.4 Textile Society, R.R. Stewart, Ancient One, for instance, stands thirtyfive feet high and is made up entirely of folded and stacked wool blankets on a cedar base (fig. 4.3). Talking Stick, Works Progress, Steward, has two parts, a column of stacked blankets and its wooden counterpart, a sculpture carved to look like a stack of folded blankets (fig. 4.4). The type of wood used for the wooden statue is white pine, which is native to the Pacific Northwest where this piece resides. To Watt, this was important because it showed that she drew upon local resources in the making of both statues, since the blankets were also collected from the area.5 Although each of these pieces are visually and materially different from each other, they are all connected by the artist’s intention to memorialize blankets and their stories, which is the driving concept behind all three projects.

There are several steps that go into finding the materials for these projects. First, an open call is put out by Watt and the institutions commissioning the piece. Any person who wants to donate a blanket to the project is provided with a blanket tag where they are prompted to give their name, location, and the blanket’s story (fig. 4.5). If someone has a story that they would like to contribute to the project, but are unable to or do not want to part with their blanket, they are welcome to send in the 78

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Pages 74–75: Figure 4.1. Marie Watt, Blanket Stories: Transportation Object, Generous Ones, Trek, 2014, cast bronze, 18 x 4 x 6 ft.

Previous page: Figure 4.2. Blanket donations for Transportation Object, Generous Ones, Trek.

Above: Figure 4.3. Marie Watt, Blanket Stories: Textile Society, R.R. Stewart, Ancient One, 2016, folded and stacked wool blankets, manila tags, salvaged cedar base, 420 x 24 x 24 in.

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Figure 4.4. Marie Watt, Blanket Stories: Talking Stick, Works Progress, Steward, 2016, salvaged white pine; reclaimed blankets and salvaged fir base, left: 144 x 11 1/4 x 11 1/4 in., right: 186 x 23 1/4 x 23 1/4 in.

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Figure 4.5. Blanket tag for Textile Society, R.R. Stewart, Ancient One, 2016.

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tag with the story and it will be matched with a proxy blanket.6 The tag is attached to the blanket and then shipped to Watt’s studio, where she photographs it, transcribes its story, adds the blanket to the digital archive, and ultimately includes it in the final work. Participation from the surrounding communities where the sculpture is installed is essential for these projects to succeed. Without the donated blankets, and their accompanying stories, the work cannot exist. Therefore, this system of collecting blankets was set up to generate maximum participation with minimal effort. By doing this, Watt is able to create a project where community members are able to engage in a larger artistic project, but need no experience in the arts or art making, only a willingness to help an artist complete a project.

The works that are produced from this type of community engagement are rich and varied. They are represented in two different ways, which both prove to be equally important to the project as a whole: the physical manifestation of the work and the digital archive. The material presentation of the collected blankets is aesthetically powerful for a few reasons. First, the sheer size of these sculptures skews our perception of what is usually an ordinary sight, a pile of folded blankets. However, when seen at this size and in these numbers—upwards of fifteen feet and over one hundred blankets—what was once an object of the everyday becomes something almost mystical.

Furthermore, the formal elements that appear in the finished work make it visually stunning. The random assortment of colors, textures, and materials that come together to create these columns, produce a tactility that is absent in most monolithic forms, which are often made of smooth, chiseled stone. The fact that these blankets are donated by community members establishes how little control Watt has over the project overall. Aspects that are taken for granted by most artists in the creation of their works—color, material, form— 82

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are left completely to chance. But by choosing to welcome this lack of control Watt is creating an aesthetic gesture in itself.

The aesthetic of the collective is something that is beyond our control and yet creates a powerful impact when seen in its entirety. These formal elements of the work only account for the visual aspects which are a result of the collective effort in this project.

The digital archive makes up the second component of Blanket Stories. Each blanket included in the stack is accompanied by a corresponding tag. However, when the work is installed it is not always possible to read all the tags.

Mainly, this is because the pieces are so tall, or in the case of Transportation Object, Generous Ones, Trek, there are no indicators because it is cast in bronze. The digital archive helps refocus the projects’ main objective, which is the blankets’ stories. On Watt’s website, each of the Blanket Stories projects has its own page with specific information pertaining to the installation and conceptual framework of the piece. It also contains a link to where the visitor can explore the blankets that were donated to the project and read each of their stories (fig. 4.6). This is by far the most emotionally powerful part of the work, because it illustrates what is at the core of the project: community. The notes vary in length and tone, but all of them describe the person’s relationship to the blanket. Many express joy that their blanket is getting a second life by being included in the project, often noting that the blanket had been sitting in a closet, worn to pieces, or was on its way to the thrift store.

For instance, the note accompanying blanket 217, included in Transportation Object, Generous Ones, Trek, donated by Jessica Drummond reads: My grandmother Ella Drummond made this quilt. She taught me to value handmade work. Though this quilt is close to being worn through, I believe Marie Watt’s project will keep and make this quilt part of something bigger. Glad it continues.7 83

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Figure 4.6. Top to bottom: blanket 217 from Transportation Object, Generous Ones, Trek, 2014; blanket 75 from Talking Stick, Works Progress, Steward, 2016; blanket 1 from Textile Society, R.R. Stewart, Ancient One, 2016.

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This short, succinct note provides little context for the quilt itself, but expresses the participant’s gratitude and recognition of the personal importance of blankets and how it relates to the project. Other notes stick closer to biography, detailing the transitions through time and space that the blanket as gone through. For example, the note written by Don Mercer for, Talking Stick, Works Progress, Steward, details the blanket and its many moves around the country: A simple green wool blanket for a twin bed purchased from Sears in the mid 1950s. It provided warmth through foggy San Joaquin Valley winters for years. It was taken to college in Montana in the early 1970s and traveled between school and home as part of an emergency kit in the car.

Provided warmth through long Montana winter storms on a dorm bed. It traveled to New York City after college and was used as a foot warmer at the end of the bed. Moved to Cincinnati, Ohio then New Jersey where it was used as bedding in the back of a pickup car on many camping trips on the East Coast from Maine to Georgia and Canada. In the late 1990s it made the journey back across the country to Central Oregon where it continued to serve as part of an emergency kit in the pickup. Finally, in the early 2000s, threadbare, faded from the sun, frayed along all edges, with a few un-mendable tears, and 50 years of travel, service and memories – it was retired.8

This passage reveals the entirety of the blanket’s history, which is something that only the owner would know by looking at it.

However, the tag and the corresponding entry in the archive show that this object is not stagnant. Finally, there are some blankets which are donated to memorialize individuals who have passed away, and these are especially powerful, because they show how the reach of the project extends beyond the direct participants. This is demonstrated in blanket 1 in, Textile Society, R.R. Stewart, Ancient One, donated by Bobbe Nolan, who writes: My brother John Carl Shapiro was a born engineer, an artist with metal and wood, a musician and an alcoholic. He died at age 60. I made him this quilt in exchange for one 85

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of his hand-turned inlaid wood bowls. He loved the quilt and he used it for years. After he died, we (his five surviving siblings) found the used and abused quilt in his bedroom, tattered and torn. We washed the quilt and kept it in John’s memory. The quilt is made of cottons, denim backing, polyester batting. It is hand quilted. Patterns: wild geese, [monkey’s] fist, Virginia Reel. I hope it qualifies for your art installation. It’s a good memorial for Johnny, who loved handmade things.9

This note demonstrates how a person who is no longer living can participate in this project, which creates a truly unique type of social collaboration. The collection of voices, images, and stories that arise out of this project show how a collective project can create an artwork that values concept and material.

The word “collective” is apt for describing Watt’s work.

I find it to be fitting in describing this project and its many elements. However, what makes this work unique in tapping into the collective? In recent decades, there has been a surge of art projects that utilize communality and collaboration.

Social practice, community-based art, socially engaged art, and collaborative art are just a few ways in which these emerging practices have been termed.10 However, one of the driving aspects of social practice is the dematerialization of the art object by placing the emphasis of the work on social collaboration and shared ideas. Art theorist, Claire Bishop, has been outspoken on the successes and failures of collaborative art projects. In her essay, “The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents,” she states that the “emphasis on process over product (that is to say: means over ends) is justified as oppositional to capitalism’s predilection for the contrary.”11 Many social practice projects advertise themselves as a largely utopian, anti-capitalist artworks—engaging with communities outside of the art world, encouraging social activism, and making work that exists outside of the art market—but how can we extend the action of social engagement in social practice to creating tangible works of art? Furthermore, how can we transform the mode of 86

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participation in these projects from active to passive?

To answer these questions, it is useful to look to a participatory art project by Suzanne Lacy. This example is particularly fitting since it not only includes social collaboration, but also uses the blanket as its foundation. The Crystal Quilt (1985–1987) was a project that spanned over the course of two years. It culminated in a large-scale installation that featured a gathering of women over the age of 60 at the IDS Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota held on May 10, 1987 (fig. 4.7).

During this performance 430 women gathered on a red and black carpet, with red and yellow tables arranged in repeating diamond shapes. When this installation is viewed from above— as it is shown in the only video documentation of the piece—it appears as an enormous quilt, but instead of being made up of cut and pieced fabric it is constructed of tables, chairs, and carpets. If these elements were the fabric, then the stitching would be represented by the women who participated in the performance. While the performance was taking place, a loud noise would ring through the space every ten minutes which would signal the women to change the position of their hands on the table which would change the design of the quilt.12 These simple choreographed hand placements taking place over the course of the performance made it look as if the quilt had come to life. Although this installation and performance were carefully considered and meant to make a visual and aesthetic impact, that was not at the core of the project. The most important aspect of this piece was the conversation that happened at these tables, not what the viewers saw or what documentation is available to us after the fact. The main goal for the The Crystal Quilt was to empower older women and address, “the experience of aging, and in this case how aging women are represented in media and public opinion.”13 This issue was addressed not only during the performance, but the two years leading up to it. During this time, Lacy and other organizers, arranged lectures, screenings, and a 87

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media campaign that involved the participation of these same women.14 This piece reflects the many tenets that most social practice projects observe. Primarily, that the project is rooted in its own temporality. Although there is video documentation of the project and there are other parts from the original piece that can be displayed, the work only truly existed at the time of installation. This was no doubt an intentional choice by the artist since, to Lacy, the work lies in the social collaboration that stemmed from this massive undertaking. Moreover, this project is entirely dependent on the active participation of others, which was no small effort. The installation depended on the participation of 430 women at the time of the performance.

Not only did The Crystal Quilt focus on a larger, societal powerstruggle, but it required that the actors within this struggle actively engage with it.

Both Lacy and Watt’s projects can be categorized as works of social practice, since they both use social collaboration to create a work. However, there are distinct differences between the two projects which should be addressed. There are aesthetic and artistic strategies at work in participatory art projects, like Watt’s Blanket Stories, that are rooted in the aesthetic and artistic strategy that I have termed collectivity. This strategy is not in opposition to social practice, but a sub-category, which extends and refigures some of its objectives. While Lacy’s project utilizes social collaboration to create a time-based performance, Watt’s project uses community participation to create permanent installations. This is how collectivity emerges as an artistic strategy that combines the participatory aspects of social practice with the creation of an object. As I mentioned before, the blankets that Watt works with in each project are out of her power. She can decide the order they are stacked in, but beyond that she cannot control for color, material, or form. The final iteration of the project is less representative of a planned aesthetic vision, but an aesthetic reflection of the larger 88

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Figure 4.7. Suzanne Lacy, The Crystal Quilt, installation and performance, IDS Center, Minneapolis, MN, 1985–7. Photo: Gus Gustafson.

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community that donated the materials. From this example, we can see how social collaboration fosters its own aesthetic when utilized to create an art object. The other element that is specific to this notion of collectivity, is the shift from active participation to passive participation. The foundation of most social practice projects is the active involvement brought forth by the participants. As we saw in Lacy’s The Crystal Quilt, the project hinges on the active participation of a specific group of women over a period of two years. This is not to say that Watt’s project does not require participation but it is a different, more accessible type of engagement. If participation is a spectrum spanning from active to passive, this project would fall closer to the passive end. The only active part of Blanket Stories is sending the blanket and its corresponding tag or just sending the story.

However, once that is done Watt and her team are the ones who are responsible for cataloging, folding, stacking, and archiving each donation. Therefore, the main type of participation that is required from the contributors is passive, after the blanket or its story is donated the project takes over. This allows for people who would not usually participate in participatory art projects—either because of the time commitment or because they are no longer living—to engage with them.

It is important to recognize here that Lacy’s project and her commitment to active engagement through social collaboration creates a project that is much more rooted in communality than Watt’s Blanket Stories. In no way is collectivity intended to be used solely as an honorific in describing the project at hand or other works for that matter. In fact, there are parts of Watt’s works that create distance from the participants from the overall project and the community at large. For instance, even though this project draws upon local communities for the raw materials that they are made up of, the statues are all housed in private institutions, meaning that access to these works is not necessarily at the best interest of the people who 90

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donated the blankets in the first place. Furthermore, it could be argued that a depersonalization occurs within the digital archive that hosts the blankets’ stories. The emphasis on the story of the anonymous object, rather than the person telling it, removes the importance or significance of the storyteller or community member. Keeping in mind that the way these stories are accessed is through text, not audio recording, which could literally give “voice” to these stories. While these aspects of the project need to be addressed, it is in recognizing both its positive attributes and its failings that we can begin to see collectivity as an aesthetic gesture and artistic strategy. The aspects of passive participation and the creation of a tangible object through social collaboration reflects my construction of collectivity, which I believe can be traced to fiber craft practices, specifically the uniquely American tradition of the crazy quilt.

Although there are many textile practices that embrace these notions of collectivity such as group-made quilts, knitting circles, and quilting bees, the crazy quilt acts as a discrete and concrete example of the function of collectivity in vernacular fiber craft. Crazy quilts rose to prominence in American material culture shortly after the Civil War. These patchwork quilts were labeled “crazy” because of their imbalanced look, jumbled assortment of designs, colors, and materials, and after their resemblance to crazing, which is a product of cracked glaze in some ceramics.15 Although all quilts implement the use of scrap fabric in different colors and designs there is usually a sense of material unity. Crazy quilts, on the other hand, make use of all different types of fabric from silks, wools, velvets, and cottons. This is largely because crazy quilts are, in essence, textile scrapbooks.16 Robert Shaw elaborates on this feature of the crazy quilt by describing the items that go into making these diverse quilts, “women personalized their crazy quilts by incorporating bits and pieces of used clothing and dress fabric, embroidered and appliquéd renderings of people, buildings, 91

Figure 4.9. Henrietta Bryan Lambie, Mourning Quilt, 1884, foundation pieced, embroidered, and painted crazy quilt, silk, 66 x 57 in.

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and pets, and needlework signatures, dates, and phrases into their compositions.”17 These deeply personal quilts are an amalgamation of various motifs and materials that represent the life of the person who made it or the person who it was to be given to. The crazy quilt represents the vernacular object which is at the very core of collectivity.

The crazy quilt made by Henrietta Bryan Lambie exemplifies this notion of collectivity (fig. 4.9). This Mourning Quilt, as it has been retroactively titled, is a thoughtful reflection of the grief of a woman during the Victorian era, but also shows us how collectivity emerges as a powerful artistic strategy in fiber craft.

The quilt itself is incredibly vivid, filled with a wide array of imagery, patterns, decorative stitching, and materials. Lambie began piecing the quilt in 1884 to memorialize the death of her eldest daughter, Ethel. She then continued making it as a tribute to her other daughter, Emily, who passed away shortly after.18 The quilt is accompanied with a note that Lambie wrote detailing the fabrics that went into making it: Jasper’s—Black and white and purple from neck-ties Ethel’s—Pink—part of sash—red ribbon—blue ribbon Baby’s—White silk lining to cloak Yellow changeable lining to my crazy quilt— the rest, mine, excepting the red satin, which I put in to brighten—19

Additionally, it was noted when Margaret Lambie, Henrietta’s only surviving daughter, donated the quilt to Historic Northampton, that friends of Lambie had also contributed quilt squares (fig. 4.10).20 The story behind making the quilt highlights the features that are central to my construction of collectivity: the aesthetic that comes from communal collaboration and passive participation.

Like Watt’s project, the materials that Lambie used to make this quilt were, for the most part, out of her control. She was simply working with what populated the closets of her 94

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Figure 4.10. Details from Mourning Quilt, quilt square possibly made by friend and square with Ethel’s name embroidered on blue ribbon that she once wore.

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household. A planned aesthetic vision was not at the heart of this project, but rather an effort to create an object that visually represented her loved and lost. The squares made by Lambie’s friends also reflect the creation of an aesthetically varied object that is rooted in the collective. These squares were undoubtedly made separately and then given to Lambie to be included in the quilt. Again, Lambie did not have control over these squares, but she included them anyway. This is an important concept to grasp when thinking through collectivity as an artistic strategy. The collective project is one that creates an object that is divorced from established artistic conventions of material control, instead it takes what it is available from a community to make an object representative of it. This also plays into the notion of passive participation as part of collectivity. In this case, passive participation came from both the use of the daughter’s and husband’s garments. The girls and Lambie’s husband were participants in the project without actively contributing to it, that is making the quilt squares or helping with the piecing.

This is especially relevant to this project, because in the case of the daughters, this passivity came from their absence.

In analyzing Watt’s Blanket Stories and Lambie’s Mourning Quilt, it becomes clear how these two projects both are linked to this idea of collectivity as an aesthetic and an artistic strategy, which utilizes passive and communal participation. In fact, the term collectivity raises interesting questions about both projects, because the word “collective” usually implies a group of people working together. However, in these projects the participants are not aware of one another nor are they working together to create the final pieces. That is why I am attempting to situate the term as an artistic strategy and aesthetic gesture that falls on the artist, rather than the group. Through these analyses, collectivity can be categorized as subset of social practice, which identifies any project that share these key features.

However, it also operates as a way to thoughtfully consider 96

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vernacular objects such as the crazy quilt, which demonstrates how collectivity emerges in textile practices, specifically. The use of textiles in the Watt’s practice pertains not only to the highly personal nature of the blanket, but the communality that many textile practices are rooted in, the crazy quilt being just one example. My own project, Family Trees, embodies these aspects of collectivity as well. When I first asked for the women in my family to make these swatches I intentionally left the instructions ambiguous so that the work would reflect the decisions of each maker, rather than my aesthetic vision. I chose not to dictate the color pallet, although I could have easily asked them to only use neutral colors or from one color group.

As a result, varied colors, sizes, and techniques are present in each swatch create an overall project that is aesthetically diverse, but grounded in the material object. Although all these examples are vastly different products, separated by time, form, and intention, collectivity recognizes and defines the conceptual framework of these projects. Rooting collectivity in the long-standing tradition of crazy quilts demonstrates how textile practice can inform aesthetic and artistic strategies in contemporary art practices more broadly.

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Family Trees, knitted wool, 48 x 36 in.

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T

he piece Forêt de Lin Wall Hanging (c. 1968, reconstructed 1983) by Sheila Hicks exudes a sumptuous tactility (fig.

5.1). The tassels, made of natural linen, are strung together in such a way that there are no gaps in between them. They overlap so much that it extends a few inches from the wall with tassels cascading down over each other, bluntly stopping at the bottom giving the illusion of a stretched canvas. The piece is monochromatic which only draws attention the linen threads that make up each tassel. Altogether, these features create a large, plush tapestry that dominates the wall. I saw this piece at the Sheila Hicks retrospective at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis in 2015. When I came to this tapestry, my first reaction was anguish, I wanted more than anything to press my hands into and feel it. As a maker, I interact with textiles so frequently that a large part of my appreciation of them is gained through touch. To a great extent, feeling the fabric or fiber acts an entry point in my understanding of them technically and conceptually. However, when fiber craft is used as a process to create an art object, the work is not supposed to be touched, only viewed optically and considered aesthetically.

Although viewing textile-based art objects as art is key to their perception and differentiates them from the vernacular textile, for me the inability to touch objects like Hicks’ Forêt de Lin Wall Hanging feels entirely antithetical to textiles and textile practice. Standing in front of this object, I am left wondering, is simply looking enough to interact with an object haptically?

Is the conceptualization of the touch the same as actually touching?

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Objects like a hand-knit sweater or handmade quilt on the other hand, are meant to be touched, handled, and worn.

Although each of the vernacular textiles presented in this text were used and handled at some point, Henrietta Bryan Lambie’s Mourning Quilt and Elizabeth Parker’s Sampler now reside in museum collections. In valuing them as historical objects, they lose their ability to be openly touched by anyone other than museum personnel or perhaps the occasional scholar.

However, I believe that interacting with textiles through touch provides a deeper knowledge of the object, both materially and conceptually. By being able to freely handle a textile more information can be gleaned than just by looking. Just one example of this is by feeling the material that the textile is made of. The type of fiber or fabric used in a project often reflects who the textile is for. For example, in hand-knitting softer wool and cotton yarns are usually picked for infants, while scratchier wools are selected for adults. These nuanced gestures often reveal aspects of the object’s story that are not immediately apparent to the naked eye. This thesis has largely focused on the visual analyses handmade textiles, yet the feel of a textile is always present as one of its properties, whether made by machine or by hand. Is it the ability to touch that is missing when we look at textiles within a museum setting?

These are complex questions about the optic and the haptic, yet they do not diminish the fact that tactility is central to textiles, especially when considering that the most common way we associate with them is through our clothing, blankets, rugs, towels, etc., all which are things that come in direct contact with our skin. How, then, can we bring tactility to textiles in museum or gallery collections? It was my hope that by creating terms that focus on process and perception of textiles and fiber craft, we can begin to identify the materiality of textiles when we cannot benefit from the sense of touch. Reproduction/ translation clarifies how fiber craft inherently reflects the 104

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Pages 100–101: Figure 5.1. Sheila Hicks, Forêt de Lin Wall Hanging (c. 1968, reconstructed 1983), wet-spun linen, 72 x 54 in., installation, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, 2015. Photo: David Johnson.

Above: Figure 5.2. Detail of Forêt de Lin Wall Hanging.

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hand of the maker, so while they are reproducing something, a translation is also taking place. We saw this through the copious differences present in the hand-knit sweaters catalogued on Ravelry. Tedium reflects the time-consuming nature of fiber craft, which is perceived in the final product through the repetition of the stitch. It also enables us to consider each stitch as it reflects the process of the maker, made apparent, for example, in Elizabeth Parker’s Sampler. Collectivity arises from the formal qualities of fiber craft projects that include the (passive) participation of others. In recognizing the differences between color and material, like in Henrietta Bryan Lambie’s Mourning Quilt, we become more familiar with diversity that stems from collective textile projects. Each of these terms are meant to reinforce aspects of fiber craft which are often lost on many viewers, and in doing so to bring attention not only to their distinct aesthetic qualities, but their materiality as well.

The viewer’s experience of all the artworks described in this project would greatly benefit from touch, by bringing the viewer closer to the maker and therefore in understanding their processes and conceptual underpinnings. Imagine running your fingers over the puckered fabric of Anna Von Mertens’ quilted works: feeling how the individual stitches break up the smooth fabric, allowing you to become acquainted with each stitch, and fully recognizing the underlying tedium present in the work. Or feeling the hand-knit figures in Elaine Reichek’s Tierra del Fugians; the lost bodies of the Fuegians brought to life again by the lifeless cloth reproductions that have clearly been lost in translation. Or being able to touch Marie Watt’s large stacks of blankets, which would bring the project full circle; interacting intimately with blankets that were so recently touched, handled, and used without hesitation.

I asked Watt if she was comfortable visitors touching the statues from Blanket Stories she replied: Ultimately it is up to the institution, but I do think they 106

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often let people touch and read the tags. One of my favorite security reports, came from a curator at the Seattle Art Museum, who shared that a guard reported that a young person ran up to the sculpture and hugged it. In my book, that is a good security problem. I like that there is the impulse to touch these objects.1

This reply by Watt indicates that there is an impulse to touch textiles, to interact with them intimately, like we do so often with textiles in our homes and on our bodies. The vocabulary I have employed in this essay is merely a starting point in shifting the appreciation of textiles. In recognizing the material and tactile aspects of fiber art we gain a closer understanding of the processes that go into making them and exploring ways to value them aesthetically. However, the reader of this text is not able to reach out and touch the objects that are presented here, and moreover, every artwork that I have presented lives in a collection or is only exhibited in art institutions and consequently cannot be handled by a larger public.

Nevertheless, this intense urge to touch is a phenomenon that I think is textile specific. At a very young age we are warned against touching metal, glass, ceramics, and other breakable or potentially harmful materials. Instead, we are given stuffed animals, blankets, and cloth toys. In fact, cloth is one of the first materials we become intimately familiar with. In her book, Wild Things: Material Culture of Everyday Life, Judy Attfield identifies this relationship: Because clothes make direct contact with the body, and domestic furnishings define the personal space inhabited by the body, the material which forms a large part of the stuff from which they are made—cloth—is proposed as one of the most intimate thing-types that materializes the connection between the body and the outer world.2

Not only are textiles the objects that we have been interacting with the longest, but as our clothing and domestic furnishings they play an important role in connecting our inner worlds to 107

Conclusion

our outer worlds. For that reason, putting textiles behind glass, unable to be used or handled, seems incongruous with their very nature. However, this is a problem that cannot be avoided, if the Victoria and Albert Museum were to let everyone touch Elizabeth Parker’s Sampler it would not last very long.

So, we must look to other ways to “touch” textiles in collections. One way of doing this is through haptic visuality, a term coined by theorist Laura Marks in her text Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media. Although she mainly uses this term in analyzing works of film and video, she argues that it also applies to “traditions of weaving, embroidery, decoration, and other domestic and women’s arts.”3 Marks asserts: In haptic visuality, the eyes themselves function like organs of touch. Haptic visuality, a term contrasted to optical visuality, draws from other forms of sense experience, primarily touch and kinesthetics.4

When you are unable to touch textiles—either because they are on a screen, a page, or in a collection—the eyes take the place of the fingers. The term not only refers to the viewer’s “inclination to perceive haptically” but a work’s ability to “offer haptic images.”5 Although this last statement focuses on images presented within a film, it can be applied to textiles and images of textiles as well. Textiles are haptic objects by nature, but when they are in collections we can only engage with them through haptic visuality. In more explicit terms concerning products of fiber craft, Marks asserts that textiles, “invite a small, caressing gaze.”6 This last phrase is a perfect description of how to interact with textiles in collections or on the page. Although, I was not able to touch Hicks’ Forêt de Lin Wall Hanging, I did stand in front of it for a prolonged period.

In that time, I slowly and carefully examined the many rows of tassels, taking time to recognize the differences in thread length and color, speculating on how the piece was made, and 108

Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies

appreciating the texture created by the cascading tassels. By the end of my viewing session, I could walk away feeling satisfied with my experience with ForĂŞt de Lin Wall Hanging, no longer tormented by not being able to touch it.

With this in mind, I would again like to return to the organizing object of this text, Family Trees. The main purpose of inserting the discrete images of the swatches in between each chapter was to create continuity throughout the book and allow the reader to revisit the project each time with an expanded vocabulary. However, it also provides an opportunity to examine each swatch with a “small, caressing gaze.� To recognize the small or large differences present in each one by looking closely, intimately, and carefully. Although they are printed on the page and therefore have lost their ability to be touched, can we use haptic visuality and the terms developed over the course of this project to analyze and describe them?

Are the haptic and the optic really so diametrically opposed?

Or, can the terms reproduction/translation, tedium, and collectivity refer to both to the haptic and optic experiences present in textiles?

Throughout this text I have emphasized artistic strategies and aesthetic reception, recognizing that there is a difference in active and passive engagement. Although there are many other ways in which the aesthetics of textiles could be studied (and surely a different selection of objects could position the argument in other ways) through these formal readings of both vernacular craft and textile-based art objects, we have come much closer to an analytical framework which accounts for their aesthetics, processes, and materials. In this study, my intention has been to expose new ways to interpret and analyze textiles and fiber art, and, perhaps, to introduce some new approaches for critics, historians, and makers in years to come.

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110

Notes Preface

1. Glenn Adamson, Thinking Through Craft, English edition (Oxford; New York: Berg, 2007), 1.

2. Naomi Schor, Reading in Detail: Aesthetics and the Feminine (New York: Methuen, 1987), 4.

3. Sianne Ngai, Ugly Feelings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 1.

4. Adamson, Thinking Through Craft, 4.

Introduction

1. Michael Cohen, “Michael Cohen on Twitter,” accessed March 18, 2017, https://twitter.com/MichaelCohen212/ status/823248828103061504.

2. “About,” PUSSYHAT PROJECT, accessed March 15, 2017, https:// www.pussyhatproject.com/.

3. “Trump Recorded Having Extremely Lewd Conversation about Women in 2005,” Washington Post, accessed April 4, 2017, https:// www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce7768cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html.

4. “The Sea of Pink,” PUSSYHAT PROJECT, accessed March 15, 2017, https://www.pussyhatproject.com/blog/2017/2/17/the-sea-of-pink.

5. E. J. W. Barber, Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times, 1st ed (New York: Norton, 1994), 286.

6. Ibid., 293.

7. Ibid., 295.

8. T’ai Lin Smith, Bauhaus Weaving Theory: From Feminine Craft to Mode of Design (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), xiv.

9. Ibid., xv.

10. Ibid., xviii.

11. Ibid., 174.

12. Ibid.

13. Vernacular architecture is defined in A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture as, “Unpretentious, simple, indigenous, traditional structures made of local materials and following well-tried forms and types” James Stevens Curl, “Vernacular Archi111

Notes

tecture,” A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198606789.001.0001/acref9780198606789-e-4935.

Reproduction/Translation

1. Christine Barthe, “Una-Daranata: With Eyes Wide Open,” in The Lost Tribes of Tierra Del Fuego: Selk’nam, Yamana, Kawésqar (London: Thames & Hudson, 2015). 9.

2. Marisol Behnke, “‘To Save What Is Left’ Martin Gusinde in Tierra Del Fuego 1918-1924,” in The Lost Tribes of Tierra Del Fuego: Selk’nam, Yamana, Kawésqar (London: Thames & Hudson, 2015), 24.

3. Christine Barthe, “Una-Daranata: With Eyes Wide Open,” 16.

4. Martin Güsinde, The Lost Tribes of Tierra Del Fuego: Selk’nam, Yamana, Kawésqar (London: Thames & Hudson, 2015), 111.

5. Elaine Reichek, “Tierra Del Fuegians. 1986–87,” Elaine Reichek, accessed November 15, 2016, http://elainereichek.com/Project_ Pages/13_Tierra/TierraDelFuegians.htm.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Walter Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator,” in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, Reprint (New York: Schocken Books, 2013), 78.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid., 79.

11. Susan Bassnett and Harish Trivedi, eds., Post-Colonial Translation: Theory and Practice, Translation Studies (London; New York: Routledge, 1999), 2.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Elaine Reichek, “Brooklyn Museum: Elaine Reichek,” Brooklyn Museum, accessed March 2, 2017, https://www.brooklynmuseum. org/eascfa/feminist_art_base/elaine-reichek.

15. “Statistics: Users,” Ravelry, accessed March 2, 2017, http://www. ravelry.com/statistics/users.

Tedium

1. Anna Von Mertens, “As the Stars Go By,” Anna Von Mertens, accessed December 7, 2016, http://annavonmertens.com/portfolio/asthe-stars-go-by/.

2. Ibid.

3. Anna Von Mertens, Interview with Anna Von Mertens, interview 112

Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies

by Ivy Vance, February 10, 2017.

4. Ibid.

5. Sianne Ngai, Ugly Feelings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 262.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid., 263.

8. Anni Albers, On Weaving (Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 1974), 22.

9. Rozsika Parker, The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine (New York: Routledge, 1989), 85.

10. Maureen Daly Goggin, “Stitching a Life in ‘Pen of Steele and Silken Inke’: Elizabeth’s Parker’s circa 1830 Sampler,” in Women and the Material Culture of Needlework and Textiles, 1750-1950, ed.

Maureen Daly Goggin and Beth Fowkes Tobin (Farnham, England ; Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2009), 33.

11. Chloe Flower, “Wilful Design: The Sampler in Nineteenth-Century Britain,” Journal of Victorian Culture 21, no. 3 (August 25, 2016): 301.

12. Elizabeth Parker, Sampler, Linen, embroidered with red silk in cross stitch, ca 1830, Victoria and Albert Museum, http://collections. vam.ac.uk/item/O70506/sampler-parker-elizabeth/.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Anne Sebba, Samplers: Five Centuries of a Gentle Craft (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1979), 9.

16. Von Mertens, Interview with Anna Von Mertens.

17. Ibid.

Collectivity

1. Marie Watt, “Blanket Stories: Transportation Object, Generous Ones, Trek,” Marie Watt Studio, accessed March 5, 2017, http://www. mariewattstudio.com/projects/transportation-object.

2. “Blanket Stories: Textile Society, R.R. Stewart, Ancient One,” Marie Watt Studio, accessed March 27, 2017, http://www.mariewattstudio. com/projects/textile-society.

3. Marie Watt, “What Is a Blanket Story?” Marie Watt Studio, accessed February 8, 2017, http://www.mariewattstudio.com/projects/ works-progress.

4. Marie Watt, “Blanket Stories: Transportation Object, Generous Ones, Trek.”

5. Marie Watt, “Blanket Stories: Talking Stick, Works Progress, Steward,” Marie Watt Studio, accessed March 5, 2017, http://www.

113

Notes

mariewattstudio.com/projects/works-progress.

6. “Call For Blankets: Submit Your Family Story to The Rockwell Collection,” accessed February 16, 2017, https://rockwellmuseum.org/ blog/call-for-blankets-2016/.

7. Jessica Drummond, “217,” Marie Watt Studio, accessed February 10, 2017, http://www.mariewattstudio.com/projects/transportation-object/elements/217-jessica-j-drummond.

8. Don Mercer, “75,” Marie Watt Studio, accessed February 14, 2017, http://www.mariewattstudio.com/projects/works-progress/elements/wp075-mercer-don.

9. Bobbe Nolan, “1,” Marie Watt Studio, accessed February 16, 2017, http://www.mariewattstudio.com/projects/textile-society/elements/001-nolan-bobbe.

10. Claire Bishop, “The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents,” in Right about Now: Art & Theory since the 1990s, ed. Margriet Schavemaker and Mischa Rakier (Amsterdam: Valiz, 2008), 60.

11. Ibid., 61.

12. Suzanne Lacy, “The Crystal Quilt (1985-1987),” SUZANNE LACY, accessed February 14, 2017, http://www.suzannelacy.com/early-works/.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Robert Shaw, American Quilts: The Democratic Art, 1780-2007 (New York, N.Y: Sterling, 2009), 144.

16. Ibid., 156.

17. Ibid.

18. Lynne Z. Bassett, ed., Massachusetts Quilts: Our Common Wealth (Lebanon, N.H: University Press of New England, 2009), 284.

19. Henrietta Bryan Lambie, “Mourning Quilt,” 1884, Historic Northampton.

20. Bassett, Massachusetts Quilts, 285.

Conclusion

1. Marie Watt, Interview with Marie Watt, interview by Ivy Vance, March 6, 2017.

2. Judy Attfield, Wild Things: The Material Culture of Everyday Life, Materializing Culture (Oxford: Berg, 2000), 124.

3. Laura U. Marks, Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), 6.

4. Ibid., 3.

5. Ibid., 6.

6. Ibid., 2.

114

List of Figures Figure 1.1. Women’s March on Washington, Janurary 21st, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/us/womens-march.html.

Figure 1.2. Tweet by Michael Cohen. https://twitter.com/MichaelCohen212/status/823248828103061504.

Figure 1.3. Women knitting pussyhats. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/02/pussyhat-creators-craft-step-defiance-trump-170212062524948.html.

Figure 1.4. Barbara G. Walker, Twin Trees in Charted Knitting Designs: A Third Treasury of Knitting Patterns.

Figure 2.1. Elaine Reichek, Tierra Del Fuegians, installation, Carlo Lamagna Gallery, New York, NY, 1989. http://elainereichek.com/Project_Pages/13_Tierra/1_Visitations. html Figure 2.2. Martin Gusinde, The Shoort spritis Télil, representing the sky of rain (northern sky) and Shénu, represnting the sky of wind (westner sky), ca. 1919-1924. http://www.bantmag.com/english/issue/post/41/234 Figure 2.3. Elaine Reichek, Yellow Men, 1986, knitted wool yarn, acrylic on plaster, and hand-painted gelatin silver print, 71 in. x 10 ft. 3 in. http://elainereichek.com/Project_Pages/13_Tierra/5_Yellow_Man. html Figure 2.4. Elaine Reichek, Masked Men, 1986, knitted wool yarn, acrylic on plaster, and hand-painted gelatin silver print, 165 x 78 in. http://elainereichek.com/Project_Pages/13_Tierra/7_Masked_Men. html Figure 2.5. Ravelry page for St. Brigid sweater. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/st-brigid Figure 2.6. Three samples of sweaters knit from the St. Brigid 115

Figures

pattern made by Ravely users Dicksie: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Dicksie/st-brigid-2; josiane: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/ josiane/st-brigid; yrode: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/yrode/ st-brigid Figure 3.1.

Anna Von Mertens, As the Stars Go By, installation, Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2006. http://annavonmertens.com/portfolio/as-the-stars-go-by/ Figure 3.2. Detail from 5:34 am until sunrise, March 20, 2003, Baghdad, Iraq (from the Palestine Hotel looking toward the Presidential Palace on the Tigris River). http://annavonmertens.com/portfolio/as-the-stars-go-by/ Figure 3.3. Anna Von Mertens, 5:34 am until sunrise, March 20, 2003, Baghdad, Iraq (from the Palestine Hotel looking toward the Presidential Palace on the Tigris River), 2006, hand-stitched cotton, 41 x 97.5 in. http://annavonmertens.com/portfolio/as-the-stars-go-by/ Figure 3.4. Midnight until the first sighting of land, October 12, 1492, six miles off the coast of current day Anna Von Mertens, San Salvador Island, Bahamas, 2006, hand-stitched cotton, 41 x 97.5 in. http://annavonmertens.com/portfolio/as-the-stars-go-by/ Figure 3.5. Gerhard Richter, Atlas, installation Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, Dresden, DE, 2012. Photo: David Brandt, https://artblart.com/tag/gerhard-richter-atlas-plate-9/ Figure 3.6. Elizabeth Parker, Sampler, ca. 1830, linen, embroidered with red silk in cross stitch, 29 x 33 in. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70506/sampler-parker-elizabeth/ Figure 3.7. Anne Hart, Sampler (England), 1740, silk embroidery on wool foundation, 12 3/16 x 8 11/16 in. https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18564073/ Figure 3.8. Sophia Stebbins, Sampler, 1831, silk embroidery on linen foundation, 10 1/8 in x 8 7/8 in. http://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?museum=all&t=objects&type=all&f=&s=sophia+Stebbins&record=4 116

Fiber Craft: Aesthetic and Artistic Strategies

Figure 3.9. Detail of Elizabeth Parker, Sampler, ca. 1830.

Figure 4.1. Marie Watt, Blanket Stories: Transportation Object, Generous Ones, Trek, 2014, cast bronze, 18 × 4 × 6 ft. http://www.mariewattstudio.com/projects/transportation-object Figure 4.2. Blanket donations for Transportation Object, Generous Ones, Trek. http://blanketstories.tacomaartmuseum.org/ Figure 4.3. Marie Watt, Blanket Stories: Textile Society, R.R. Stewart, Ancient One, 2016, folded and stacked wool blankets, manila tags, salvaged cedar base, 420 × 24 × 24 in. http://www.mariewattstudio.com/projects/textile-society Figure 4.4. Marie Watt, Blanket Stories: Talking Stick, Works Progress, Steward, 2016, salvaged white pine; reclaimed blankets and salvaged fir base, left: 144 × 11.25 × 11.25 in, right: 186 × 23.25 × 23.25 in. http://www.mariewattstudio.com/projects/works-progress Figure 4.5. Blanket tags for Textile Society, R.R. Stewart, Ancient One, 2016. Photo provided by artist.

Figure 4.6. blanket 217 from Transportation Object, Generous Ones, Trek, 2014, http://www.mariewattstudio.com/projects/transportation-object/elements/217-jessica-j-drummond; blanket 75 from Talking Stick, Works Progress, Steward, 2016, http:// www.mariewattstudio.com/projects/works-progress/elements/ wp075-mercer-don; blanket 1 from Textile Society, R.R. Stewart, Ancient One, 2016, http://www.mariewattstudio.com/projects/textile-society/elements/001-nolan-bobbe Figure 4.7. Suzanne Lacy, The Crystal Quilt, installation and performance IDS Center, Minneapolis, MN, 1985–7. Photo: Gus Gustafson. http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern-tanks/display/suzanne-lacy-crystal-quilt Figure 4.8. Henrietta Bryan Lambie, Mourning Quilt, 1884, founda117

Figures

tion pieced, embroidered, and painted crazy quilt, silk, 66 x 57 in.

Photo provided by Historic Northampton Figure 4.9. Details of Henrietta Bryan Lambie, Mourning Quilt, 1884.

Figure 5.1. Sheila Hicks, ForĂŞt de Lin Wall Hanging (c. 1968, reconstructed 1983), wet-spun linen, 72 x 54 in., installation, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, 2015. Photo: David Johnson. http://camstl.org/exhibitions/main-gallery/sheila-hicks/ Figure 5.2. Detail of ForĂŞt de Lin Wall Hanging.

118

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