Surface Design Journal - Spring 2012 - Sample Issue by Surface Design Association

Surface Design Creative Exploration of Fiber and Fabric SPRING 2012

$10.00

Dress c

Spring 2012 Volume 36 Number 3

Tracking the Art-to-Wear Spirit in the 21st Century / JO ANN C. STABB

Rodarte: Outsiders Inside the Runway / IDA MILLER

Authentic Hybrids in African Fashion / A. M. WEAVER

Sandra Woodall: More than Meets the Eye / CONNIE STRAYER

Nicole Dextras: Decomposing Couture / LEESA HUBBELL

Erica Spitzer Rasmussen: Clothes Tell the Tale / MASON RIDDLE

Shinique Smith: Fiber into Form / SALLY HANSELL

Karen LaMonte: Clothes Cast in Mystery / MARILYN MILLSTONE

Departments 52 54 60 62 64

First Person In Review Exposure Spotlight on Education In Print

Cover Artwork: NICOLE DEXTRAS Lilac Swing Coat Garment made from lilac flowers, ligularia leaves, rush, and cattail, 2011. Reproduced from an archival inkjet print by the artist, 18.5" x 32".

Background Art, p7: KAREN LAMONTE Reclining Dress Impression Cast glass, life size: 20" × 63.5" × 15.75", 2005. Collection: Chrysler Museum of Art.

p20: BAYO ADEGBE Short dress with hand-painted and arranged calabash embellishment, accessories of “Adua” seeds.

Surface Design Journal

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p28

p32

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Spring2011

Dress: For Success As I write this letter, my first as the new editor of Surface Design Journal, I can’t help but think of the Alexander Graham Bell adage - When one door closes, another opens. . . - that still rings true. When Fiberarts magazine ended its thirty-fiveyear publication run last summer, I was crestfallen by the prospect of making the announcement at the 2011 SDA conference in Minneapolis. To my surprise and delight, I was welcomed with open arms by the SDA officers and staff members. Though sad to see the end of such an influential force in the field, they were turning their attention toward the future of the Journal as Patricia Malarcher contemplated retirement. A few months later—after extensive in-depth interviews and editorial visioning—I was thrilled to be offered the position. Although Patricia made her final farewells in the Winter 2012 issue, it must be said that, due to our long-term planning, she had complete editorial control of this exciting issue dedicated to new and innovative wearable art forms. No doubt, she leaves some very big shoes to fill but readers can be assured that I am dedicated to continuing the quality and diversity of coverage that has made the Journal a rich and invaluable source of textile-arts inspiration. While learning the editorial ropes from Patricia during my internship last fall, I discovered a wealth of international events and creative discourse through the many member benefits that SDA now offers—from the daily SDA Buzz posts on Facebook and Twitter to the weekly SDA Newsblog articles to the monthly SDA eNews. I’ve also enjoyed learning about my new community through the gallery of SDA Members Directory pages. Free and easy to use, this platform affords each of our 4000 members

worldwide the chance to network and share works of art. In the hopes of leading by example, Patricia and I have included screenshots of our SDA member pages below. From Boston to Belgium, we encourage everyone to update your pages this week by adding: a headshot; a brief statement; links to your website, blog or Etsy shop; and two images of art work with related information. From a purely selfish perspective, I can’t wait to see this directory evolve into a comprehensive database that I (and other collectors, curators, and writers) can use as an effective research tool to promote contemporary textile art. We may be miles apart on the map but my “office door” is always open to suggestions for topics, trends, exhibitions, books and artists to consider for upcoming issues of the Journal. Simply email ideas and insights to journaleditor@surfacedesign.org. Article pitches and artist submissions can also be sent via email to journalsubmissions@surfacedesign.org. For submissions guidelines just check out the Journal page on our website at www.surfacedesign.org/publications/sdajournal. I look forward to hearing from you and continuing the incredible legacy of Surface Design Journal. -Marci Rae McDade journaleditor@surfacedesign.org

C o r r e c t i o n SDJ Winter 2012, Vol. 36, No. 2 On page 60, the last name of the author David Pierce was misspelled as “Plerce”.

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17th International Surface Design Association Conference

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Artwork (clockwise from top): Diedre Adams, Jennifer Libby Fay, Anita Carse, Saaraliisa Ylitalo

N i c o l e

D e x t r a s b y

You’re strolling through the Public Market on Granville Island—a tourist destination in the middle of Vancouver, British Columbia—when a young woman in a pointy bustier made of twigs and a skirt made of vines approaches to ask if you know where your clothes come from. She wants to check your labels for fiber content, test your knowledge about global sourcing, and take your temperature on sustainable production. She’s provocatively attired but very engaging and gives you the gift of a leaf as she rustles away. You’ve just walked into an activist intervention by environmental artist Nicole Dextras, who works outside the fashion system. Literally outside. Made of wild rose and Japanese knotwood among other Invasive Species (as this wearable work was named), it is part of a series called Weedrobes—the latest manifestation of Dextras’s life-long engagement with fashion, performance and photography. Conceived with street theater in mind, the piece was later placed on a dress form to become an “ephemeral installation” in Dextras’s Canadian garden and completed its life cycle reclaimed by ivy, one of the invasive species from which it was made. Dextras states, “The intention of the Weedrobes series is to engage the public on several levels: through street interventions, garden settings, and gallery exhibitions. Each new piece begins as a wearable sculpture constructed from local and renewable plant materials. It is then photographed with a model in a landscaped urban setting, emphasizing the impact of humans on the natural environment. The third stage consists of a public intervention in a shopping area where the garment wearer engages with passersby regarding issues of disposable consumer goods. The garment/sculpture is later installed in a garden or park setting and left to decompose over time.” Weedrobes are just one of many ideas growing out of a fertile mind, and Dextras is both 30

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dextrous—and prolific—in multiple media. From small-town Ontario, she grew up in an atmosphere of unfettered creativity, free to improvise clothing, sculpture, and theatrical productions using tissue paper and boxes cast off from her mother’s retail fashion store. Working minimum wage jobs after high school, she decided that if she was going to be poor anyway, she might as well be a poor artist doing work she loved. Torn between art and theater programs, she studied painting at Emily Carr University in Vancouver but shifted to interdisciplinary performance art after realizing she needed to do more physical and sculptural work. Post-grad, she worked in the theater world for ten years, starting with props that led to costumes and set design. Next she explored papermaking, reinventing herself as a paper caster and expert at molding, carving, and calibrating dyes for paper masks that fed the brisk market for Native American art. Wide-ranging independent study has made her a font of information about alterative approaches to process. Dextras now considers herself a sculptor/photographer who, like Andy Goldsworthy, documents time-sensitive work made predominantly with the materials nature provides—and destroys. But she has been very mindful of making work that is nothing like Goldsworthy’s in order to express her own aesthetic concerns. She is a founding member of the Art is Land Network, a Vancouver-based group working within the genre of environmental art. “I make work with ice in winter and with foliage in summer,” she explains in a short video. Driven by an ongoing urge to merge sculpture with photography, she realized—during an unusually cold Vancouver winter—that the beauty of swirling fabric and color in a dye bath could be held still by freezing it. Thus began her series of ephemeral and enigmatic Iceshifts, conceived to capture the multilayered aspects of the self. Once summer came, a pile of laurel Surface Design Journal

NICOLE DEXTRAS Invasive Species Garment made from: wild rose, willow, English ivy, knotweed, camellia flowers, fabric, 2009. Reproduced from an archival inkjet print by the artist, 18.5" x 32". LEFT: Lace Leaf Collar Magnolia leaves, raffia, thorns, 2009. Reproduced from an archival inkjet print by the artist, 14" x 9.5".

Spring2012

N i c o l e

D e x t r a s

NICOLE DEXTRAS Maple Flapper Jumper Garment made from red maple tree seeds, lupines, dragon tongue leaves, smoke bush, rush and cattail leaves, 2011. Reproduced from an archival inkjet print by the artist, 18.5" x 32". RIGHT: Laurel Suffragette Street Intervention Laurel leaves, hala leaves, hydrangea flowers, corn husks, caning, magnolia petals, baby’s breath, tomatoes, Russian olive tree thorns, 2011.

leaves in an alley sparked an experiment to create a wearable garment out of leaves—without sewing—that has evolved into a major body of botanical activism—held together by thorns. Weedrobes interventions in 2011 have included Lilac Swing Coat, a “manteau parfumé” and commentary on the manufactured need for artificial scents created by the perfume industry. Maple Flapper Jumper represented the enterprising 1920s immigrant, newly arrived in Canada and destined for work in the garment industry. Laurel Suffragette, made of hydrangea flowers, baby's breath, and laurel leaves with a lacey corn husk jabot and green tomato button, was a showstopper on Robson Street—the main drag of Vancouver retail fashion. Laurel is on a mission to rally awareness and 32

NICOLE DEXTRAS Lilac Swing Coat Garment made from lilac flowers, ligularia leaves, rush, and cattail, 2011. Reproduced from an archival inkjet print by the artist, 18.5" x 32".

support for workers’ rights in garment factories— both past and present. Mobile Garden Dress—100% compostable—was commissioned for the 2011 International Vancouver Children’s Festival. It’s “a self-sustaining garden and shelter for the new urban nomad, complete with pots of edible plants and a hoop skirt which converts into a tent at night.” With that as focal point of fun, Dextras held workshops for kids who created an Eco-Wardrobe clothesline installation of tiny “garments” made from flowers and greenery about to be thrown out by local florists. Underpinning these transient works are some enduring challenges to the status quo. Dextras writes: “My current art practice is rooted in the environmental art movement. It is based on the theories of seminal artists such as Joseph Beuys’s notion of ‘infiltration’ which integrates art and social change, as well as Robert Smithson’s ‘nonsite’ theory, which challenged the parameters of the conventional gallery setting. The Weedrobes project can be positioned as a hybrid of environmental art within a socially engaged practice because of its relation to ecology, culture, and eco-feminism. Taking these sculptures to the streets is a form of reclaiming the body as a public site. In this respect, Weedrobes draws on works such as Jana Sterbak’s Flesh Dress Spring2012

and Beverly Semmes’s sculptural garments that focus on the garment as an extension of the body.” Dextras’s stunning website (nicoledextras.com), which took a year to create, rewards the viewer with witty writing and outstanding visual documentation of her many, and far-flung, projects. Don’t miss her work using felt, under “Public Installations,” for the 1st Land Art Biennial in Mongolia (2010). Her Iceshifts and Ice Typography series are a must-see. Late to recognize her creative gifts, Dextras describes herself as the last person to realize she should be studying art. Her favorite quote: “The greatest asset to an artist is not talent, it’s courage.” Creatives and culture-vultures everywhere can only hope that much more will be dared by this adroit social critic—and fashion outsider. Work by Nicole Dextras will be included in Fashionality: Dress and Identity in Contemporary Canadian Art curated by Julia Pine at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario (May 5-September 2, 2012).

—Leesa Hubbell is a writer/educator and fashion industry veteran who also creates SDA’s Digital News Publications and presence on Facebook. She writes for the Surface Design Journal about fashion, design and the business of creating. 33

i nr eview San Francisco, California

Reviewed by Susan Taber Avila

Wrapping Traditions: Korean Textiles Now Museum of Craft and Folk Art Prominently displayed in the Museum of Craft and Folk Art's front window is a large, elegant rendition of traditional bojagi—the Korean wrapping cloth. Harmony by Sora Lee, provides an immediate lesson and explanation of the bojagi technique prevalent in Wrapping Traditions: Korean Textiles Now (June 17– October 22, 2011). With only the occasional fiber slub as additional visual texture within the sheer ground of white silk fabric pieces, the fine contained seams graphically delineate an abstract formalist pattern. The size of a bedding cover, with long

ties at each corner, Harmony is hung over an acrylic rod in front of an orange wall; when the museum’s door opens, small gusts of air cause it to flutter, as if hanging on a clothesline in the wind. This notion of function is inherent in all traditional bojagi (or pojagi), the Korean cloths used for wrapping gifts as well as covering and protecting other household items. There are two distinct types of bojagi—those made from small, salvaged fabric remnants pieced together into abstract patchwork forms and those made from single pieces of fabric with elaborate embroidered decoration. Class usually distinguished the type of bojagi made during the Joseun Dynasty (1392-1910), but all were made by women marginalized in an extremely patriarchal society, similar to the contemporary Taliban in Afghanistan. The bojagi was a unique creative outlet in an otherwise closeted existence. Curator Chunghie Lee has been researching and sharing this Korean legacy for nearly twenty years. Through public workshops and her adjunct teaching position at Rhode Island School of Design, Lee has developed the ultimate bojagi lesson plan, allowing her students to constantly reinterpret this traditional craft. Lee has also organized several exhibitions similar to Wrapping Traditions, most notably Pojagi and Beyond,* which toured many international venues in the past several years. With the exception of the pieces on one center wall that contains mostly traditional bojagi by Korean artists, there are a variety of techniques, materials, and conceptual ideas scattered throughout the museum’s small and crowded gallery space. A distinctive organization and more didactic information about each piece would have helped provide a stronger contextual framework for viewing the exhibition. In general, the most compelling pieces are those that clearly speak about bojagi, BOK HEE LEE Yellow Wrapping Cloth Handwoven hemp, hand stitching, natural dye, 24" x 24", 2009.

Surface Design Journal

either through structure or concept. Bok Hee Lee’s Yellow Wrapping Cloth is bojagi perfection. It is difficult to believe that this beautiful piece from 2009 was not made centuries ago. It speaks at once of ancient traditions and contemporary life in its adherence to bojagi principles. Composed of color-blocked linen in predominantly gold and ochre hues punctuated with lavender, rust and black, the piece demonstrates exquisite visual balance. Contemporary takes on the formal bojagi pieced structure include Hae-hong Chang’s Black Project. The repeated imagery on this long rectilinear piece of dark black shadows recalls an ancient city in the mist of dawn. In contrast to the somber tone of Black Project, Yea Geum Jung‘s Korean Fantasy embraces an abundance of energetic color with the central panel of patchwork slashed to reveal even more variety of hue. Nestled among the solid blocks of color are two small areas of printed cloth as a clever nod to the bojagi tradition of recycling. While both Chang’s and Jung’s work include embroidery stitches for visual emphasis, Mary Ruth Smith alludes to the patchwork structure through the stitching process. The intensive embroidery in Crossover divides her work into smaller pieces with a profusion of marks and pattern, invoking an awareness of time and labor. HEESON YOO (Korean National Living Treasure for Embroidery) Butterfly Peony Bojagi Hand-embroidered, 31" x 31", 2011.

SUNGSOON LEE Seon Printing and drawing on ramie, 22.7" x 204.7", 2010-11.

Rather than working with the visual structure of traditional bojagi, Barbara Shapiro’s Wrapping Memory (Baskets) take the function of bojagi as her concept. With scraps of her own hand-woven and dyed cloth, Shapiro has wrapped plaited, indigo-dyed cane baskets to metaphorically contain the memory of her deceased brother. Glass Bojagi by Elisabeth Schubel also reminds us of loss—as if memory and traditions have melted away in this small slumped glass object delineated by pieced red edges. Jeeun Kim's Response triggers a kitchen memory with her whimsical organization of a red plastic net—one that might contain nuts or oranges in a grocery. Displayed floating in space, the netting is stretched and sewn at the base to form a gridded square while the relaxed unstretched net creates a sea of masculine protrusions jutting out into space. The breadth of work in Wrapping Traditions pays homage to the anonymous creative women who first developed bojagi. And just like EunSook Lee’s Transparent Bojagi made from riveted glow-in-the-dark PVC , curator Chunghie Lee reminds us that when the lights go out, bojagi tradition will still be there. *Bojagi is now the preferred spelling.

—Susan Taber Avila is Professor of Design at UC Davis and Sunshine Scholar at Wuhan Textile University, China. Spring2012

E POSURE LORIE H. MCCOWN Fredericksburg, Virginia Encroachment Fabrics and fibers, hand-dyed, hand- and machine-appliquĂŠ, sewn and embroidered, 40" x 42", 2011 Photo: Paul Moshay

DELLA REAMS Doha, Qatar Qatar Flora Mixed fiber yarns, hand-hyperbolic crochet, handand machine-knit, purchased composite vases, hidden wire armature, 2009

AMANDA SALM Pacific Grove, California Knot Tu Be Horsehair, natural dyes, nylon core, 6.5" x 3.5" x 3.5" Photo: Scott MacDonald

MARLISS BORENZ JENSEN Minneapolis, Minnesota Vitality Trellis Layers of Procion H dye and Inko resist, hand-painted and stenciled on Peru cotton jacquard. 174" x 54", 2010 Photo: Steven G. Jensen

NELDA WARKENTIN Phillips, Maine Spring Painted silk over cotton and canvas, machine-constructed and quilted. 42" x 42", 2011 Photo: Russell Caron

Artists represented on the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Exposureâ&#x20AC;? pages are members of the Surface Design Association (www.surfacedesign.org). Spring2012

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Surface Design Association History Founded in 1977, the Surface Design Association is an international not-for-profit organization with an office in Sebastopol, California. SDA seeks to raise the level of excellence in textile surface design by inspiring creativity and encouraging innovation through all its undertakings. Our current membership of nearly 4000 national and international members includes independent artists, designers, educators, curators and gallery directors, scientists, industrial technicians, entrepreneurs, and students. Publications and Web Site Surface Design Journal, the Association’s quarterly magazine, offers in-depth articles on subjects of concern to contemporary textile artists, designers, and other professionals in the field. Each issue is designed around a theme relevant to surface design and offers perceptive commentary unequaled by any other peer publication. Accompanying each article are full-color reproductions of work by leading edge artists. The monthly eNews spotlights time-sensitive information including exhibition opportunities and initiatives. The online SDA NewsBlog features news of SDA member activities, reports on events relevant to surface design, and information on professional resources. The blog is located on the SDA web site (www.surfacedesign.org). The web site includes ongoing updates on SDA conferences; a gallery featuring members’ artwork; an international calendar of textile-related events; a bulletin board listing opportunities for exhibitions, grants and employment; .

Conferences The Surface Design Association sponsors major biennial international conferences as well as smaller regional and international conferences. Programs feature distinguished speakers offering perspectives on surface design, workshops and demonstrations covering a wide range of contemporary and historical techniques, exhibitions, fashion shows, vendor expos, and other events. Conferences have been held at different US and international locations.

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