Mindy Solomon Gallery

Many a stranger asked 21-year-old me what kind of art I was studying when I was finishing my BFA.“Are you a painter?” they (mostly) asked. And when I said, “No, I’m studying in the fiber department,” I would inevitably see a particular flicker cross their face, moving from perplexed to an attempt at connection: “Oh like sewing? Do you make clothes?”

That reaction never surprised me, but I always found the work of explaining what the “fiber arts” were (this is 1997) to be strangely difficult. The person waiting on my explanation often jumped into help: “Like quilts?” “Like crochet?” “Did your grandmother teach you?” And I was often answering, “Yes, but…” or “no, but…,” and not exactly failing to explain this form of expression, but usually coming up short. To stick with the mechanics of it (sewing, crochet, knitting, quilting) was to put too much emphasis on the skill of assembly (which is only part of the story), but at the same time, to explain the artform via the types of objects classified as fiber (quilts, tapestries, embroideries) was to shatter the field into too many parts – each deserving of a longer narrative about their histories and methodologies. What was clear however, was that the “idea” of the fiber or textiles arts (choose whatever term you prefer) felt in reach for most people. They had a kind of comfort and familiarity with the “things” that might make up the realm, eager to make connections to their own lives, experiences and families.

As I turned increasingly towards writing about art, I wrestled with the way artforms associated with craft were discussed. When talking about the glass, ceramic or fiber arts, the way something is made and the artist’s relationship to the material (a kind of dance with the elemental as much as a managing of its properties), is as important to the meaning of these objects as any narrative or symbolism they might deploy. Materiality is at the core in a different way in these disciplines, and it is what draws the maker and viewer together. In a recent catalog essay for the exhibition “Weaving Data” at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, I referenced Branden Hookway’s book, Interface when discussing the work of a group of artists – primarily weavers – whose work invoked digital technologies and spaces. Hookway wrote: “what most define the interface are the processes by which it draws together two or more otherwise incompatible entities into a compatibility.” The interface is the threshold between those entities. In this sense, fiber is a kind of magnetic threshold. It is a bit sticky, in that we can feel it in our bodily memory. The quilt, for example, can facilitate a connection between a viewer and maker on a different level – an affective level. We feel the quilt with our bodies, and we know it without rhetoric.