LISA KOKIN
Raveling
Exhibition organized by Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA October 2 – 31, 2012 www.seagergraygallery.com
Published by Seager Gray Gallery Works of art © 2012 Lisa Kokin. All rights reserved.
No written portion of this publication may be reproduced, for any reason, by any means, including any method of photographic reproduction, without the written permission of the author. All inquiries regarding the text should be directed to the author. Essay © 2012 Maria Porges.
No artwork may be reproduced in part or in whole without the written permission of the publisher.
Printed by Hunza Graphics, Oakland, CA Design by Lia Roozendaal/Jagwire Design, El Sobrante, CA Photography © 2012 Lia Roozendaal, Phone: 510-758-4022 www.jagwiredesign.com
In memory of my mother, Mollie Kokin (1912-2011), who loved, encouraged, and supported me unconditionally as a person and as an artist. Never one to be caught unprepared, her last words to me were, “Get a bottle of milk and maybe a box of crackers and we’ll go.”
new work by LISA KOKIN essay by MARIA PORGES
6
Breath is the thread that ties creation together.
— Morihei Ureshiba
Thread is the place where the textile subtext of our
In art as well as life, thread’s role depends on how it is
lives begins and ends, and the slender connection to
employed. Woven, it becomes a surface, goods, stuff — a
everything between. As a material, thread winds its way
“thing.” In contrast, when used to sew, thread serves
so far back in time that it is impossible to determine
as a means, connecting or decorating other materials.
or even imagine who might have first made it, twisting
In Kokin’s most recent body of work, thread occupies a
plant fibers or animal hair. Its starring role in myths and
magical place between these two, becoming the matrix
fairytales has made it a metaphor for everything from
for its own messages. These texts — and there are actual
stealth to patience, continuity to endurance. Thread
words in the majority of these floating webs of thread — are,
connects, corrects, mends and embellishes. It has even
for the most part, the utterances and writings of Kokin’s
entered the world of the internet, as a term for chained
mother Mollie in the last part of an extraordinarily long
remarks on a topic in an online discussion.
life which ended In December of 2011, only a few months short of 100 years.
For Lisa Kokin, thread has always been both idea and material. Her parents were upholsterers by trade; her
Living with dementia and physically fragile, Mollie Kokin
grandmother worked in a tie factory. Kokin got her first
spent her final years in a skilled nursing facility. Just
sewing machine at nine, and soon began making her own
before she passed away, it seemed as though she knew
clothes. As an artist, her work has included a range of
that the end was imminent — or had in some sense
methods and materials, but thread itself has connected
become ready for it, which can be the same thing. During
many of the parts of her career — stitching together
a visit with her two days before her mother’s death, Kokin
books, photographs, paper, or buttons, among other
remembers Mollie saying emphatically, over and over,
things.
“Take me home NOW.”
7
Over the following weeks and months, Kokin found
pieces to vinyl LPs. The words “take me home now” are
herself wanting to focus on those four words, and “take
stitched in a spiral, like the grooves into which a needle
me home now” became the basis of several pieces. Using
enters to play a record’s sound. At the same time, the
embroidery thread in her machine, she sewed the words,
densely sewn circles of text resemble tree rings, and
over and over, in different formats. In two horizontally-
the pieces’ overall form invokes clocks, sundials, and
oriented rectangles, the word “now” is most clearly
countless other measuring devices.
readable, standing out in a way that recalls Mollie Kokin’s emphasis on it. The stitched script, chains of thread
In Kokin’s previous work, color has often been determined
and words, evokes both stria and strata — scratched
by the materials themselves — the bright hues of book
marks on the surface of rock, as well as successive
spines and covers, the tans and greys of pulped pages,
layers, accumulated over time. The horizontal rectangle
the black and white of old photographs. Record (Derma)
suggests an open book, its pages completely covered
is a disc of sewn words, in shades of red and purple
with scribbled words.
with hints of vivid yellow. As the title poetically implies, these colors represent the range of tints Kokin saw in
This idea of marks serving as a kind of record-making
her mother’s fragile, bruised skin during the many hours
or -keeping is evoked even more strongly in the circular
spent just observing her, sitting by her side. As with the
works that followed in this series. Including the word
stubbornly faithful use of transcribed text represented in
“record” in their titles, Kokin creates a double meaning,
this and other works, Kokin has created a visual record of
referring not only to the notation of speech that these
what she saw.
represent, but additionally to the resemblance of these 8
In Transcript (Kaddish), the same range of colors have
course of a walk she took a few hours after her mother
been used to stitch the words of the last conversation
died. These familiar shapes — maple, oak, eucalyptus–
Kokin had with her mother — a disjointed, oddly poetic
are potent symbols of the evanescent nature of life itself,
exchange about taking a trip, getting ready to go
and its eventual and inevitable end.
somewhere. This metaphorically-charged exchange spirals outwards from a small opening in the center, the
In one form or another, death has been one of the
thread dense and dark at first, but ending in a lucent
central materials and themes in Kokin’s work: through
yellow. Under these words, Kokin has sewn a Hebrew text
her frequent use of pictures of long-deceased people,
in progressively lighter shades of blue. It is the Kaddish:
her considerations of the Holocaust, her elegies for her
prayers that are spoken as part of the mourning ritual in
father. Now, she remarks, she is truly an orphan. Yet
Judaism.
these webs of thread are by their very nature connection itself, serving as a reminder that friends and loved ones
Prayers in Hebrew also appear in the haunting works
are around us. Even the dead are not completely gone,
titled Ninety-Nine Leaves #1 and #2. These veils of
as long as we live, remaining as memories in word and
pale leaf ‘skeletons’ composed of thread incorporate
image.
delicate shreds of printed text taken from an all-butdestroyed prayer book Kokin found at a salvage yard. In these pieces, there is one leaf for each of the years of her mother’s life. Kokin found and pressed the actual leaves that served as a pattern for her thread creations in the 9
10
An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break. —Chinese proverb
Like the Record series, Motif is round. Unlike those works, however, it consists of a series of concentric circles rather than a spiral, and its ‘text’ is an image of a mother and child, rendered in thread, dozens of times. These two close figures in contrasting dresses are Kokin and her mother, based on a photograph taken in 1960. Traces of red thread appear in the web of stitches that join the hypnotic, mandala-like circles of tiny couples. These sanguine bits go nowhere, yet they invoke the umbilical cord that once connected girl and mother — and, perhaps, the invisible connection described in the Chinese proverb above. Whatever they might signify, they are all but invisible from only a few steps away. They are a reminder (for the sharp-eyed and observant) of the many ways in which Kokin has followed the path of her singular imagination, creating worlds of wonder out of simple materials such as paper, buttons, old photographs and thread — essentially inventing ways to make what she needed to see in the world. In the work presented in this exhibition, her elegiac memorials for her mother connect her vision to our own memories and losses, to love, and to remembrance. 11 11
12
14
16
17
18
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
List of Works Page 4 Where Do I Begin? #1 (detail) Thread, stabilizer 24 x 16.5 inches, 2012
Pages 12, 13 Ninety-Nine Leaves #1 Thread, book page fragments, stabilizer, wire 66 x 42 inches, 2012
Page 6 Where Do I Begin? #1 Thread, stabilizer 24 x 16.5 inches, 2012
Ninety-Nine Leaves #1 (detail)
Page 8 Record (Is It Tomorrow?) (detail) Thread, stabilizer 22.5 x 22 inches, 2012 Page 9 Transcript (Kaddish) (detail) Thread, stabilizer 28 x 28 inches, 2012 Page 10 Motif Thread, stabilizer 31 x 30.5 inches, 2012 Page 11 Motif (detail)
Pages 14, 15 Ninety-Nine Leaves #2 Thread, book page fragments, stabilizer, wire 72 x 32 inches, 2012 Ninety-Nine Leaves #2 (detail) Pages 16, 17 Pattern (42) Thread, stabilizer 48 x 24 inches, 2012 Pattern (42) (detail) Pages 18, 19 Record (Is It Tomorrow?) Thread, stabilizer 22.5 x 22 inches, 2012 Record (Is It Tomorrow?) (detail)
Pages 20, 21 Transcript (Kaddish) Thread, stabilizer 28 x 28 inches, 2012 Transcript (Kaddish) (detail) Pages 22, 23 Record (Derma) Thread, stabilizer 23.5 x 23.5 inches, 2012 Record (Derma) (detail) Pages 24, 25 Record (Dark to Light) Thread, stabilizer 21 x 20.25 inches, 2012 Record (Dark to Light) (detail) Page 26 Where Do I Begin? #2 Thread, stabilizer 24 x 16.5 inches, 2012 Page 31 Where Do I Begin? #3 (detail) Thread, stabilizer 24 x 16.5 inches, 2012
27
28
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2012
Raveling, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
In Another Vein, Gail Severn Gallery, Sun Valley, ID
2011
Speaking Volumes, Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson, WY
2010
Panacea Plus, Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA
2009
Joy of Booking, Mendocino College, Ukiah, CA
Ex Libro, Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA
2007
Fruit of the Broom, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York, NY
2004
Attachments, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Secondhand Memories: Sewn Found Photographs, Gallery Connexion, Fredericton, NB, Canada
2002
Domestic Intelligence: Books by Lisa Kokin, San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco, CA
2001
Relative Obscurity, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2000
Salvaged Histories, Nine Gallery, Portland, OR
Biography 1983
Fabric of the Peoples of the Americas, Casa Fernando Gordillo, Managua, Nicaragua
1982
Latin America in Batik, Museum voor Land-en Volkenkunde, Rotterdam, Holland, Sheffield Town Hall, Sheffield, England, and Transnational Institute, Amsterdam, Holland
1980
Lisa Kokin: Batiks, Laney College, Oakland, CA
1979
Batiks of Lisa Kokin, Santa Fe Armory for the Arts, Santa Fe, NM
1976
Batik Banners, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2012
Summer Salon: Materials, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
Word-Play, Studio Quercus, Oakland, CA
The Art of the Book, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
Sew to Speak, Kennedy Art Center, Holy Names University, Oakland, CA
Femmescapes, Mills College Art Museum at 70 Park (Lenore Pereira and Rich Niles Collection), San Francisco, CA
1999
Lost and Found, Island Mountain Arts, Wells, BC, Canada
Bookmaking Is Not a Crime, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC
Do Not Destroy: Trees, Art and Jewish Thought, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
Flea Market Economy, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2011
Seager Gray Inaugural Exhibition, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
1997
Art Book Art, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Art + Communication of Space, Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson, WY
Circumstances Beyond Our Control, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Scrap ART, San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, San Jose, CA
Reconstructions: the Altered Book, Conrad Wilde Gallery, Tucson, AZ
1996
Remembrance, Buchenwald Memorial, Weimar-Buchenwald, Germany
Banned and Recovered, U.C. Merced Kolligian Library, Merced, CA
1995
Fond Objects, Morphos Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010
Banned and Recovered, Humboldt State University Art Gallery, Arcata, CA
1994
Tome Is Where the Art Is, Gallery Connexion, Fredericton, NB, Canada
1992
Tales of a Nice Jewish Girl and Unearthing, Definitely Superior, Thunder Bay, Ont., Canada and Artcite, Windsor, Ont., Canada
Unbound: A National Exhibition of Book Art, Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA
The Art of the Book, Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA
Remembrance, Judah Magnes Museum, Berkeley, CA
1991
Persistent Memory, The Lab, San Francisco, CA
Boutons: Phenomène Artistique, Historique et Culturel, Mona Bismarck Foundation, Paris, France
1989
Award of Excellence Show, Surface Design National Conference, Gatlinburg, TN
Secret Drawings, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, CA
By a Thread, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA
1988
Vestiges: Work in Fiber by Lisa Kokin, Pitt International Galleries, Vancouver, BC, Canada
2009
The Altered Book, Reed Whipple Cultural Center, Las Vegas, NV
1986
Batiks and Drawings of Lisa Kokin, The Women’s Building, San Francisco, CA
Afterlife, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA
Prints on the Edge, Togonon Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1985
The Batiks of Lisa Kokin, Centro Cultural Vergueiro, São Paulo, Brazil
1984
Daybreak: Nicaragua/El Salvador, Galerie Franz Mehring, Berlin, Germany
The Past Will Not Return, Exploratorium, California State University, Los Angeles, CA
Lisa Kokin’s Studio at Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, CA
Second Nature: Recycled Materials Inspired by Animals, Plants and Insects, Ohio Craft Museum, Columbus, OH
New Works/Old Story: 80 Artists at the Passover Table, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
The Dorothy Saxe Invitational, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
2008
Banned and Recovered, African American Museum and Library at Oakland, Oakland, CA
2001
Books as Art, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA
1010, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
The Art of the Book, Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA
Eureka Fellowship Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA
2000
Piecing it Together: A Visual Journal, Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz, CA
Snapshot, Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD
Eureka, Too! Fellowship Awards 1999-2001, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA
(Un)common: Art of Altered Objects, Department of Art and Art History, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA
Artists as Collectors, Oakland Museum Exhibits at the Oakland Airport, Oakland, CA
2007
Women’s Work, Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA
Gathering, Oakland Museum off-site exhibition at 500 12th Street, Oakland, CA
Eureka Fellowship Exhibition, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA
Singularity in the Communal Tide: Culture and Identity in the Moment, Pierro Gallery of South Orange, South Orange, NJ
1999
The 7th International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition, University of Hawaii Art Gallery, Honolulu, HI
2006
Menagerie: Artists Look at Animals, Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco, CA
Making Change: 100 Artists Interpret the Tzedakah Box, The Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
Eighth Annual Realism Invitational, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York, NY
Piecing it Together: a Visual Journal, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA
The 9th International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition, University of Hawaii Art Gallery, Honolulu, HI
1998
Alternativity: the Other Side of Christmas, The Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
The Art of the Book, Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA
2005
Inaugural Group Exhibition, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York, NY
Out West: the Artist’s Book in California, New York Center for Book Arts, New York, NY
Scents of Purpose: Artists Interpret the Spice Box, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
On the Money, Sherry Frumkin Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
Needle Art: a Postmodern Sewing Circle, Gallery 210, St. Louis, MO and Texarkana Regional Center For Visual Art, Texarkana, TX
Hello Again! A New Wave of Recycled Art and Design, McAllen International Museum, McAllen, TX and Vancouver Museum, Vancouver, BC, Canada
2004
Needle Art: a Postmodern Sewing Circle, McColl Center for Visual Art, Charlotte, NC Blanden Memorial Art Museum, Fort Dodge, IA, Brevard Museum of Art and Science, Melbourne, FL, and Milton Hershey School Art Museum, Hershey, PA
1997
Talent 1997, Allan Stone Gallery, New York, NY
Fahrenheit 451, San Francisco Art Commission Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Inner Workings, Oakland Art Gallery, Oakland, CA
Commemorative Textiles, Textile Arts Centre, Chicago, IL
2003
Needle Art: a Postmodern Sewing Circle, Ellen Noel Art Museum, Odessa, TX and J. Wayne Stark University Center Galleries, College Station, TX
Hello Again! A New Wave of Recycled Art and Design, Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA and Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Show Me the Money: the Dollar as Art, Fresno Metropolitan Museum, Fresno, CA and Blanden Memorial Art Museum, Fort Dodge, IA
Codified Desires, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1996
Science Imagined, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
Is Money Money?, Palo Alto Cultural Center, Palo Alto, CA
Text/Context, Arts Benicia Center, Benicia, CA
2002
Ex Libris, Frumkin/Duval Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
CCAC: Past, Present, and Future, Oliver Art Center, Oakland, CA
Show Me the Money: the Dollar as Art, Naples Museum of Art, Naples, FL and Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA
Codified Desires, In Khan Gallery, New York, NY
Refuse/Reuse/Redux, The Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz, CA
29
1995
Representations of Auschwitz, Gauforum Weimar, Weimar, Germany
The Medicine Show, Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts, Chicago, IL
A Foot in the Door, The Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
1994
Redefining the Book, Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Rooms for the Dead, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
Book as Art VII, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
Making Sense: Story in Contemporary Bay Area Art, San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum, San Francisco, CA
Books and Bookishness, DePaul University Art Gallery, Chicago, IL
1993
Hybridization: Contemporary Northern California Craft, 1975-Present, Oliver Art Center, Oakland, CA
Beyond the Written Word, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA
1992
History: Truth or Consequences, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA Domestic Ontogeny, Oliver Art Center, Oakland, CA
Form and Object, juried by John Perreault, University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, WY
1991
2012
First Place, Dorothy Saxe Invitational Award for Creativity in Contemporary Arts, Do Not Destroy: Trees, Art and Jewish Thought, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
Audience Choice Award, Honorable Mention, Do Not Destroy: Trees, Art and Jewish Thought, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
2008
Purchase Award, Richmond Civic Center Public Art Interior Acquisitions Project, Richmond, CA
2007
Commission, Castro Valley Library Small Scale Works Commission Program, Alameda County Arts Commission, Oakland, CA
2006
Purchase Award, Alameda County Arts Commission, Oakland, CA
2005
Alameda County Arts Commission Juvenile Justice Center Rotational Works Award, Oakland, CA
1998
Eureka Fellowship, Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco, CA
California Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowship, Sacramento, CA
California College of Arts and Crafts Recent Graduate of Distinction Award, Oakland, CA
Site: Western Union, Haines Annex, San Francisco, CA
1996
Puffin Foundation Grant for Remembrance, Buchenwald Memorial, Weimar-Buchenwald, Germany
Fiberarts International ’91, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA
1995
WESTAF/NEA Regional Fellowship, Denver, CO
New Ends, Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Staten Island, NY
1990
Fiber Progressions, Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York, NY
1991
Jeanne Brenholts Award, Most Innovative Use of Materials, Fiberarts ’91, Pittsburgh, PA
On Fiber: Human Conditions, UNL Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
1989
Surface Design Award of Excellence, Surface Design Association, Marina del Rey, CA
Batik: The Dyeing Art Today, Southern Ohio Museum and Cultural Center, Portsmouth, OH
1987
Women’s Hearts and Hands Award, The Women’s Foundation, San Francisco, CA
1989
Works on Paper, Claudia Chapline Gallery, Stinston Beach, CA
Paper/Fiber XII, Johnson City Arts Council, Iowa City, IA
Pro Arts Juried Annual, juried by Mary Jane Jacob, Pro Arts, Oakland, CA
1988
Art of the Refugee Experience, Euphrat Gallery, Cupertino, CA
Personal Mythologies, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
1987
Punto Común/On Common Ground, Pro Arts, Oakland, CA
Women’s Foundation Awards Exhibition, San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum, San Francisco, CA
Viva La Vida: An Homage to Frida Kahlo, The Women’s Building, Los Angeles, CA
1986
South Africa: State of Emergency, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, CA
1985
Art Against Apartheid, Heller Gallery, Berkeley, CA
1983-5 The Other America, traveling exhibition, Stockholm, Sweden; Hamburg, Germany; Rome, Italy
30
Awards
1982
In Progress, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, CA
1978
Homage to Frida Kahlo, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, CA
Education 1991
Master of Fine Arts with High Distinction, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA
1989
Bachelor of Fine Arts with High Distinction, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA
23 Sunnyside Avenue, Mill Valley, CA | 415.384.8288 Hours: Tuesday through Saturday 11 – 6, Sunday 12 – 5 www.seagergray.com | art@seagergray.com