Tapestry Tale…

I graduated from Montclair State College (now University) in 1977, with a degree in fine arts.  That was a long time ago.  It is where I learned to weave, to spin, to enjoy the range of fiber techniques I now take for granted.  It is really where I learned to think, to see, to compose, to appreciate.  In my senior year of college, I was privileged to have a year long internship at a well known rug store in the Northern NJ area, called Einstein Moomjy.  I had a Cranbrook Loom set up in their showroom, and for minimum wage, I sat and demonstrated Wednesday evenings and all day Saturday.  I completed 5 tapestries while I was working there.  I knew then that I really had no interest in following a tapestry medium, because my real love was clothing, though I also acknowledged that I’d eventually have to earn a living and with no loom, and no real means of becoming a conceptual artist at 22 years old, I’d need to look beyond my immediate education.

Fortunately I was able to purchase a loom, with a bit of an inheritance from one of my grandmother’s, and there it sat while I began my life teaching crafts for the Craft Showcase in Paramus Park, a mall in Paramus, NJ.

My father, who was the credit manager of the now defunct Scott Paper Company, which had its corporate offices near the Philadelphia International Airport, had paid for my college education.  He asked me when I graduated, if I would be willing to weave a tapestry for his office.  How could I refuse?  So I sketched out some ideas for one more tapestry, after a visit to his office, which was decorated in a very definite 70’s modern style, grey and orange theme.  My father retired in the 1980’s from corporate life, and died of a heart attack at the young age of 72.  Meanwhile, the tapestry found its way to my parents house at the Jersey shore, where it hung proudly until my mom sold that house, a number of years after his death and moved to Maryland with her new husband, a man she went to High School with, she had known since she was 13.  It is a sweet story, but I digress…

The tapestry ended up in the back of my closet, forlorn and unloved, it certainly didn’t work in my house, yet it wasn’t something I could just donate to Goodwill.

Fast forward to January of 2016.

My husband was a huge Devils fan, he loved ice hockey, and had season tickets to the Devils for many years, seeing them win two Stanley Cups, and only gave up his season tickets when he became a global traveler and could no longer attend regular games.  In December of last year, a notice came out to Montclair State alumni, about a networking opportunity to gather with fellow alumni and staff, at a Devils Game.  There would be a small reception and buffet, followed by the game and then photos on the ice afterward.  I could bring a guest. My husband who was really really sick from all of the treatment had had undergone for stage three esophageal cancer visibly brightened when I suggested the tickets, and by January he felt recovered enough from that round of treatment to go with me to this event.  It was one of the great joys I still have thinking of him in the center of the ice, where I shot this photo.  It played in a loop, along with many other important moments in his life, during the viewing and subsequent funeral when he died in June.

Again, I digress…

During the reception/buffet at the arena back in January, the gentleman behind me, a tall guy, probably a few years younger than I was, with an Australian accent, struck up a conversation with me, he noticed I was a fine arts major but his badge had flipped around and I couldn’t tell what major he was nor what year he graduated.  Turns out his sister back in Australia was an artist and the subject came up of what an artist does with old work, especially once it no longer represents the current body of work.  I completely identified with this dilemma, as we all know I make clothing, not tapestries, and I am definitely not a collectible in the art world.  I don’t even sell my work any longer, actually haven’t for years, unless someone falls in love with an old piece, and it fits them, and then I let them make me an offer.

Continuing the theme of old work, I mentioned to this tall Australian, that in fact, I had a piece, an old tapestry which had been woven for a corporate office for my father in the 70’s.  I didn’t have the heart to destroy it, but who would want a dated tapestry, that probably wasn’t my best work, I was only 23 at the time, and largely self taught in the tapestry process.  There was a large portion of handspun, dyed a lovely gold with onion skins, but that wouldn’t make it any more appealing.

The Australian gentleman said as he flipped his badge around, that he was in fact the dean of the Feliciano Business School at Montclair State University, and they had just opened a brilliant new building on campus and it was sorely lacking artwork for the walls and if an alumni were to donate a work of art to the University, they would be obligated to hang it.

I nearly dropped my plate of food….

Of course I followed up immediately and as in academia, everything takes a long time to happen, but I’m thrilled to say that today, my son and I, accompanied by my dear fiber friend Diane Savona, also an alumni of Montclair, met the Dean and his staff at the Feliciano School of Business for a small reception and lunch to celebrate the installation of my tapestry in the Dean’s suite.  They had a plaque and everything.

When I dropped the tapestry off in May, I walked into the building for the first time and I was shocked that the decor, the architecture, and color scheme, was a modern 1970’s.  In fact the large fiber work at the top of the central spiral staircase from the lobby of the building, was an Alexander Calder fiber piece, (I didn’t know he worked in fiber) in similar colors from 1975.  If I had designed a tapestry to hang in this space, I couldn’t have done a better job.

So thank you Dean Cant for giving my tapestry a permanent home.  My dad is smiling.

Thank you to my son who accompanied me today, and spent an entertaining lunch conversing with the Dean about military weapons systems and the integration of technology and innovation.

And here is the permanent home for my father’s tapestry.  I wish my husband could have been there with me today. Closure is a wonderful thing…

Stay tuned…