The overlapping circles start out as golds on the edge and melt into oranges, reds, blues, greens, and then back to golds for the middle of the quilt. A bit of her daddy’s Sunday shirt is matched with Abigail’s lace slip, the collar from Hope’s graduation dress, the palm of Grace’s baptismal gloves. Trunks and boxes from the other place gave up enough for twenty quilts: corduroy from her uncles, broadcloth from her great-uncles. Her needle fastens the satin trim of Peace’s receiving blanket to Cocoa’s baby jumper to a pocket from her own gardening apron. Golds into oranges into reds into blues… She concentrates on the tiny stitches as the clock ticks away. The front of Mother’s gingham shirtwaist — it would go right nice into the curve between these two little patches of apricot toweling, but Abigail would have a fit. Maybe she won’t remember. And maybe the sun won’t come up tomorrow, either. I’ll just use a sliver, no longer than the joint of my thumb. Put a little piece of her in here somewhere.
Gloria Naylor, Mama Day (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1988)
More Than Perfect
We’ve become accustomed to perfection; we expect it. Particularly in the manufactured goods we buy. Despite the occasional random note slipped into a new pair of trousers announcing that that particular garment was inspected by ‘Ann’ (or an anonymous number) we have no interest in whose hands assembled the object we bought. Instead, we’d prefer to assume that no human hands touched the item at all, that everything were made by machines.
Machines work tirelessly and predictably. What they’re programmed to do will be done and the first will look like the last. As consumers, we take this for granted in all commodities. We’re trained to look for flaws and reject any defect. Bad seams, uneven color, a nick or a dent— it goes back to the store for replacement or a refund. We’ve even extended this mania for perfection to our food. We will not buy spotted apples or oranges that aren’t brightly consistent. This makes the work of an artist especially difficult. Increasingly, the artist is expected to compete with the slick results of machine manufacturing.
An impeccable line is favored above the idiosyncratic hand of the maker. The variance that occurs from hand applying a color is considered a clumsy mistake. We want what an artist does to look like a product. In some contemporary art practices, this is exactly what is done. The object is created in a way that emulates manufacturing methods and reduces the evidence of the individual in order that the object can be more saleable.
The exhibition 3: Patricia Dahlman, Robyn Ellenbogen, Julie McHargue, goes against the current towards glistening, corporatized fabrication. It is not only an appreciation for the handmade in art, but a paean to craftsmanship. Patricia Dahlman uses sewing as another way to draw. “I sew marks with thread that one might make using pencil or paint. I like the surface, light and the feel of an embroidery that you get in a sewn drawing.” Her large hanging fabric sculpture, “Figure in Red,” harkens to a three-dimensional Stuart Davis painting. The colored shapes are ostensibly figurative, but it is the relationships of the colored shapes as they move in space that is the true idea of the piece. In talking about her use of materials Dahlman says, “I want to get to the idea rather than deal with a more complicated working process such as welding or making ceramics.”
Robyn Ellenbogen’s “Particular and Absolute” is as much an environment as a sculpture. Its cloud of multi-colored circle modules of sewn paper, hanging in the air, forms a dense, kinetic energy. Like the color interactions of Hans Hofmann, their presence changes the energy of the space and our perception of the environment. For Ellenbogen, “the sewn paper constructions evolved as a means of experimenting with the light.” Family tradition also inspired her interest in sewing as a medium. “My mom was a stellar seamstress and her interest in sewing dresses introduced me to a rich world of textiles and tactile sensation.”
Julie McHargue learned Appalachian traditions of sewing and quilting from her grandmother. “I would spend weekends with [her] as a child. She would show me how to make patterns, sew doll clothes and piece together quilt patterns from tiny scraps of fabric. Her house was small and simple in a rural community of around 500 people. She came from the hills of Kentucky and raised 12 children. She taught me…the depression era mind-set of using everything and wasting nothing. When I sew I feel her and my heritage.” McHargue’s series of six fabric panels wed Folk Art tradition with the compositional and color brevity of Kazimir Malevich. Each panel stands alone as an elegant work, but as a series it is possible to trace the progress of the theme as it expands and contracts from one panel to the next. This
creates an active, living work.
Dahlman, Ellenbogen and McHargue create potent works that celebrate the artist’s hand and stretch our ideas of what can be achieved through sewing and the sewn line. While their work transcends the domestic realm, we also attest that it honors the significance of the traditions from which they draw. Sewing, quilting, crochet are enmeshed in our histories and women have most often safeguarded this heritage. Through their art practices, Dahlman, Ellenbogen and McHargue assert the value of the craft in their work and point a way to the future of these traditions as expressed through contemporary art.
curators
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