I had the most amazing day yesterday. In NYC. It all started with tickets my husband won at a charity auction for Broadway tickets of our choice. Since I have season tickets to two different Jersey venues, I rarely get into NYC to see Broadway shows, and if a show is currently on Broadway, the local venues can’t use the property. Anyway, I’ve wanted to see Book of Mormon since it won the Tony back in 2011 I think. So my husband chose that show. First row Mezzanine. Unbelievable performances and pretty powerful content. But that wasn’t quite the highlight of the day for me!
I was cruising through facebook, which I’ll do once in awhile, because I have so many fiber friends, many I don’t actually personally know, who post amazing work, and relevant topics in the arts, and one finds out all sorts of things. I came across an exhibition, currently mounted at the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC, a mere 10 blocks from The Eugene O’Neill theater where Book of Mormon was playing. I don’t know how I missed this show but luckily it is still there until September 30.
First let me say I was introduced to textiles as an art form in the 70’s, when I studied art, and fiber was beginning to be considered a viable and important medium in the art world. We studied all the greats, all the women who contributed to 20th century textiles, innovators like Dorothy Liebes, Sheila Hicks, Lenore Tawney, Ruth Asawa, and of course Anni Albers. I bow down in their presence. And they were all here. There is even a piece from Olga de Amaral, a Columbian Textile artist, whose work I first became familiar with when I took a train from Lausanne Switzerland in 1977 to a remote town some distance away, to see an exhibit of Olga’s textile work.
The exhibition focused on women in art, craft and design, midcentury and today. Many of them worked in textiles and fiber, and there were also the greats in ceramics, Karen Karnes, and Toshiko Takaezu. I have studied and admired their work for decades. I felt like I was in church looking at statues of the saints. These are women who forged ahead, alone and underrepresented, and contributed a lasting impact on how we view craft today. Especially in fiber. I wish there were more images from this exhibition available on line, but there was a fantastic piece on Huffington post which you can read here. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/25/pathmakers-museum-of-arts-and-design_n_7622938.html [1]
Here is the link to the MAD museum exhibition, if you live anywhere near NYC, make sure you get to see the early works in this exhibit. http://www.madmuseum.org/exhibition/pathmakers# [2]
I pulled a couple of images from those on the website, that have extra meaning for me. I have been a fan of Dorothy Liebes since I first became familiar with her work, she made huge contributions to how we view household textiles today. Whenever you see woven blinds with slats and chenille and other cool fibers, Dorothy was the one who first thought of it.
[3]Lenore Tawney was one of my textile greats, and besides a couple of her pieces, there is this wonderful photo sitting behind the loom with warp threads coming from spools as she beamed a sectional warp.
[4]
And though I actually wasn’t familiar with Poly Apfelbaum’s work, I sure am now. There was an entire room in the gallery for this piece alone, images on silk, inspired by every weaver’s bible, Davison’s Handweaver’s Pattern Book. Yeah, the green one. It’s on your shelf if you are a handweaver.
[5]And so I’m still floating from the day yesterday. I’m so glad I saw the post and my husband was a good sport about going with me to the exhibit on the way to the theater. We had a lovely dinner in the city, and were home by 10pm, catching the bus as soon as we entered the gate at Port Authority. That doesn’t happen often. A magical night!
Stay tuned.