SHARING THE JOY OF WEAVING

from Loud Volumes Soft Stuff, Exhibition Catalogue 2021

LOUD VOLUMES SOFT STUFF

Weaving Tricksters

Marianne Fairbanks and Sofia Hagström Møller’s transatlantic collaboration, which resulted in the exhibition Loud Volumes, Soft Stuff, is a potent example of the rich rewards of breaking new ground. By daring to leave one’s comfort zone and embracing new opportunities, at a professional and a personal level each artist’s level of creativity exponentially expanded.

The two weavers first met via Instagram and followed each other’s accounts, ‘liking’ and commenting on each other’s work. Some time later, when Fairbanks was planning a workshop in Copenhagen, she reached out to Hagström Møller. The textile medium served as common ground and connected the two artists. Their meeting in the Danish capital was the first time they met face to face, and after they had spent a day together, with Hagström Møller in the role of tour guide, Scandinavia and America had become a little more closely interwoven.

Their meeting in Copenhagen and Hagström Møller’s subsequent residency in the United States at Fairbanks’ invitation became the real-life junctures that led to the weavers’ unique collaborative project. A project that, like the title of their first joint exhibition, embodies the powerful potential of interweaving Scandinavian and American textile traditions. Finding common ground between two continents, the two weavers began considering staging a common exhibition. Due to the Covid pandemic, a joint residency at the Danish Art Workshops had to be cancelled, and the weavers were confined to their respective countries. Their collaboration returned to the digital realm, combined with tangible elements in the form of packets of yarn, sketches and weaving samples that were sent back and forth across the Atlantic to enable the hands-on engagement that is so crucial to any weaver. How do the colors look and behave in real life? How do the fibres reflect the light? How can woven textiles be sculptural? How can weaving be used, with all of its limitations and potentials to make something new? There are many questions and considerations to address before the actual weaving begins – for Hagström Møller, on the digital TC1 loom at the Danish Art Workshops, and for Fairbanks, on the digital TC2 loom in the Department of Design Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

During their work on the exhibition in Copenhagen, the two different weaving traditions became increasingly evident. With her artistic background, Fairbanks approaches the loom as a tool that she uses to bring out her ideas. Whether her pieces are in fact woven or merely inspired by classic weaving traditions and patterns is of secondary concern to Fairbanks. Her primary focus is on the resulting artistic statements, in this case exploring how the TC2 digital loom can create trompe l’oeil effects of volumetric space that employ weave structures that form tactile narratives that trick the eye. Hagström Møller’s approach is different. As the granddaughter of a traditionally trained Swedish weaver, she grew up with an appreciation for the textile craft and techniques. She masters both the analogue and the digital loom and can weave the classic patterns in her sleep. These classic virtues are such an integral part of Hagström Møller’s professional DNA that breaking free from them was a major effort as well as a journey of discovery. A journey that involved re-examining, reconsidering, and reinterpreting tradition. This new outlook is essential and one of the interesting outcomes of the encounter between Fairbanks and Hagström Møller. Fairbanks’ intuitive and free approach to the loom, patterns and textile expressions –inspired, for example, by images she sees in a book – only relates to tradition to the extent it provides inspiration and serves her artistic purpose. The liberated creative exuberance of two adventurous textile minds, combined with the rich historical weaving tradition implicit in Hagström

Møller’s work and the free artistic interpretation of Fairbank’s pieces, opened both weavers’ eyes to the vital and fruitful potential in this encounter of two cultures, two contexts, two backgrounds and traditions. Their collaboration has given Hagström Møller renewed respect for and appreciation of her own traditional crafts background and her classic training and mastery of weaving techniques. An awareness that this background is a strength but that it may also restrict her development as an artist. Fairbanks, on the other hand, has gained a deeper appreciation of traditional weaving techniques and how a craft-based approach can add new layers to both analogue and digital textile storytelling. On the other hand, she is even more convinced that the intuitive textile language she is creating does not necessarily have to relate to a tradition or be the bearer of historical origins; that the artistic endeavour is sufficient in itself, as long as it springs from a sincere passion for the textile medium.

In the Danish exhibition, the works of the two weavers engage in a dialogue that unfolds in form and colour, patterns and techniques, tradition and innovation . Older pieces by the two weavers were included in the exhibition, serving as a foundation that both weavers integrated into their new pieces. Earlier graphic blackand-white weavings by Fairbanks had inspired Hagström Møller to experiment with this binary colour scale, just as Hagström Møller’s use of gradient colour had impacted Fairbanks’ new works. Their mutual respect for each other’s backgrounds, sources of inspiration and colour scales provided new insights that encouraged both artists to explore new ground, revealed new possibilities and resulted in new works of art they would never have created without this cultural encounter.

Another joint focal point of the Copenhagen exhibition which the two artists pursue further in their upcoming exhibition is the spatial aspect, the hanging and frames of the textile pieces, which adds a new perspective that is integrated as a new feature. A new design dimension and an added layer of storytelling that functions on equal terms with the textile pieces themselves and enables a new dialogue in a three-dimensional and spatial language where the frames that hold the pieces add an accent that raises the multi-faceted expression to new heights. That is a fascinating insight and an original approach that will hopefully be just as “loud” and “soft” as the Copenhagen showcase of the impact of two contexts, two creative minds and two sets of skilful hands meeting in the shared joy of weaving.

- Charlotte Jul

Design and craft art curator, consultant, writer, editor www.charlottejul.co