ACS Magazine Threads of Truth | 2017 Jnuary 28,12020 Issue Page 1 ACS Magazine July/August Page
Threads
Fiber Arts & S
curated by Se Exhibition dates: January
Threads of Truth is a fiber arts based exhibition focusing on exploring work of social activism by ar various facets of social activism, criticism and global impact. Threads of Truth will pose questions fiber art is often considered a gentle medium, this exhibition will reveal it’s other side.
Featured
Allison Geller, Yvette Kaiser Smith, Yulia Shtern, Anne Bouie, Teresita Carson Valdéz, Susan Oss Katherine Van Drie, Patricia Davoust, Shawn Quinlan, Judith Roston Freilich, Beatriz Mejia-Krumb Vivian Han Lin, Evee Erb, Hope Wang, Katherine Steichen Rosing, Lita Lovestone, Georgia Schwe Fidelia Castro, David Schwittek, David Versluis, Rosy Petri, Nanon C. F. Morsink, Barbara Jugovac ine Schwalbe, Jenni Bateman, Vicky Lentz, Raven Dock, Krishma Patel, Kevin Dotson, Molly Mac Sally Ko,.
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of Truth
Social Impact
ergio Gomez 17 to February 21, 2020
rtists working in the fiber arts medium. This exhibition will provide a forum for works which explore s, raise awareness and bring light to some of the many issues that confront our world today. While
d Artists
sman, Gina Lee Robbins, Margarita Fainshtein, Helen Dannelly, Priscilla Perkins, Kathy Weaver, bein, Dorothy C. Straughter, Lilach Scharg, Lily Martina Lee, Zelene Schlosberg, Suzie Tuchman, ender, Lorna Watkins, Julie McGuire, Judy Bales, Elizabeth Fram, India R. Tresselt, Kathryn Frund, c, Cassandra Walters, Sharon R. Davis, Laurie LeBreton, Cecilia de Lima, Lindsay Olson, CathercDonald, MarĂa JosĂŠ Mir, Mario Loprete, Sara Peak Convery, Lena Bartula, Helena Wadsley, and
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Katherine Van Drie I've Been Told, 2019 | Fabric, Wood
The influences of social media and the diet industry are far reaching and have long-term effects on our physical and mental health. The diet culture has impacted the way we define and perceive ourselves and has led to increased stress, depression and a rise in mental illness. This current body of work examines the struggle to reach unattainable, homogenous goals of lifestyle, health and beauty that we are told will signal our significance and success.
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TRY THE NEW ALCOJUISY COCKTAILS HAVE A RELAXING & STRESS-FREE TIME!
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j u i s y CALL https://www.juisy.online
Two Locations: juisy CBD Lounge (Bridgeport) 1029 W 35th Street | Chicago, IL 60609 Mon - Sat 11am – 5pm Sunday 9am - 2pm juisy Café (Chinatown) 2157 S China Place, upper-level | Chicago, IL 60616 Sun - Wed 12pm – 10pm Thurs – Sat 12pm – 12am ACS Magazine Threads of Truth | 2017 Jnuary 28,72020 Issue Page 7 ACS Magazine July/August Page
photo credit - photographer, Yuya Ohashi (yophotography)
RenĂŠe LaVernĂŠ Rose Publisher & Editor-in-Chief ACS Magazine 1029 West 35th Street Chicago, Illinois 60609 contact@acs-mag.com www.acs-mag.com The ACS Culture www.acs-mag.com/theacsculture *Special thanks to & guest contributor & photo credits Sergio Gomez Artist | Curator | Creative Entrepreneur
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Chicago Artists Coalition Touch-Trace, 2019. Detail, Gallium. Image courtesy of the artist, photo credit: Jesse Meredith.
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Michael Zhou
Executive Director, Zhou B Art Center
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THE ZHOU B SPIRIT What is the Zhou B Spirit? It is a sense of selflessness, a sense of sacrifice, and a commitment to lifting up others. Never taking “no” for an answer. Never giving up on your dreams. Always believe that everything and anything is possible, even going against the greatest of all odds. These are the things my father and uncle have been teaching me for as long as I can remember. I grew up in an artist family where my father and uncle were visual artists and my mother a professional dancer back in China. Little did I know that my entire childhood and upbringing would prepare me for the role that I’m playing today as the Executive Director of the Zhou B Art Center. It was a very unique family situation where my father was married to my mother but is also essentially married to my uncle. It is this kind of unbreakable bond and connection that makes them the Zhou Brothers: truly unique figures in the world of art. Growing up I was never interested in the arts. I loved sports and athletics, and that ruled my daily life, barring anything and everything else. But I was always surrounded by the arts, especially the Zhou Brothers art. I can remember my early years way back in China growing up in my father and uncle’s studio. The Zhou Brothers always put in the extra time and work, honing their skills and techniques when other artists at that time already have been home or out and about. I remember when I first came to America at the age of eight helping my father and uncle with their studio work, moving the giant canvases to stretch and unstretch their paintings. My childhood subconsciously prepared me for what I do today, working with the Zhou Brothers and other artists at the Zhou B Art Center on a daily basis, and navigating the art world beyond Chicago. The Zhou B Spirit is a huge part of my life and my family’s life, it lives through the Zhou Brothers art and the Center, lifting up the people and artists of our diverse community. This spirit makes us who we are and makes us truly unique. It is the secret to the Center’s community and success and has special meaning as we celebrate the Zhou B Art Center ten-year anniversary. This Spirit of the Zhou Brothers will only become stronger over the coming years and will live on through the generations. It’s legacy, freedom, and the dream will continue to inspire on a global scale. I’d like to thank my wife, InJung Oh, and my family for their support. I thank the entire Zhou B Team and Community for living and sharing this Spirit. We look forward to the coming generations. Sincerely, Michael Zhou Executive Director Zhou B Art Center 1029 W 35th Street | Chicago, Illinois 773-523-0200 www.zhoubartcenter.com | infor@zhoubartcenter.com ACS Magazine ThreadsJuly/August of Truth | Jnuary 28, 2020 Issue Page 11 ACS Magazine 2017 Page 11
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Zhou B Art Center
1029 W 35th Street | Chicago, Illinois 773-523-0200 www.zhoubartcenter.com | infor@zhoubartcenter.com ACS Magazine ThreadsJuly/August of Truth | Jnuary 28, 2020 ACS Magazine 2017 Page 13 Issue Page 13
The Zhou Brothers In the river of human history, in every generation, the Artist belongs to a special niche of fantasy and creativity. Their poetic creation and expression enriches the human spirit, adding richness, wisdom, and color to our history. In our time, how can we give artists an environment for creation and the young generation a platform to show their talent? This was the beginning concept for the Zhou B Art Center. Since 2004, the Art Center has grown and developed and those ten years passed suddenly. The desire and idea to build the Art Center is still a fresh memory that burns in our minds. Today we celebrate ten years of innovation. We established ourselves first as artists in Chinese Contemporary Art movement. In 1986 we came to the United States, participating in shows in Chicago and relocating our practice to Bridgeport. In the early ’90s, we finished our fourth major museum traveling show in Europe and in 1996 we accepted a professorship in the Hamburg International Academy of Art and Design. During the following years we taught and lectured at the London International Art Academy (England), Salzburg International Summer Academy (Austria), Traunkirchen Summer Academy (Austria), and Kunstakademie Bad Reichenhall (Germany). This allowed us to transport our teaching philosophy and concept of Feelingism, “Feeling is Liberty,” to students and audiences throughout Europe. Over nearly 20 years we have had thousands of students from all over the world. Using our Feelingism philosophy, these young artists continue to pursue their artistic dreams and are passionate about developing their own artistic styles. While we were teaching, each time classes finished, all the students stayed together to discuss art, showing their appreciation for our time and hardly being able to say goodbye. Contemplating this feeling, we finished our meetings. We began to frame a fantasy, “Can we give artists and students a place to create and provide a platform to artistic talent and freedom?” At this point in our artistic journey we realized how important it was to create an environment for artists to gather and foster each other’s creativity. This kind of special atmosphere seemed like a rare commodity in a world where commercial developers make many areas in modern cities too expensive for artist communities to thrive. We imagined an environment created and kept solely for artists and decided this would be our dream. One day we realized we truly had the ability and belief to construct this environment and realize their dream. Created in our hearts to protect the greatness and holiness of art, the Art Center became the Zhou B Art Center. We hope in history we are able to create a home for artists and paradise for creation. In 2004 we purchased an 87,000 sq. ft. building in Bridgeport, designing and creating until reaching the international art recognition the Center has today. The center has gone through three different stages of growth. First, starting from a primitive a simple condition, the first group of artists believed strongly in the vision of the Center. Second, the Center built a strong goal and mission to bring in many international artists, developing and improving the condition of the Center. Third, the Center established a reputation for curating high-quality exhibitions for artists and their work. With at least ten exhibitions a year, the Art Center has hosted and curated over 160 major exhibitions in the past ten years. The Art Center houses more than 50 artist residencies, including international artists, with a wide variety of mediums represented. The 3rd Friday Openings at the Center are some of the special destinations for artists and art lovers in the city of Chicago. In the last ten years, the Center developed with hundreds of artists coming together to build the Center up and give it international influence. We appreciate all of the support from friends, institutions and, most importantly, the Artists. We hope this Art Center will continue to develop and grow 20, 30, 40 years and into the future. During this great moment of celebration, we are beginning another great vision and fantasy: The Zhou B Art Center will be developing in the great capital of China, Beijing. In the future Chicago and Beijing will have a great alliance through the Zhou B Art Center providing the greatest platform for international artists.
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The Zhou Brothers
​​(Shanzuo Zhoushi and Dahuang Zhoushi)
We have to especially thank Oscar Friedl, the former Director of the Center; Sergio Gomez, Curator, and Director of Exhibitions; Donna Bliss, Vice President of Creative Development, and all the Zhou B staff for all of their tireless work, passion, commitment, and contribution. We would like to especially thank Michael Zhou, Executive Director of the Zhou B Art Center. Since graduating college, all of his time and talent has gone into believing and supporting the dream of his father and uncle. Art will belong to our future and people.
www.zhoubartcenter.com/zhou-brothers.html
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Sergio Gomez Artist | Curator | Creative Entrepreneur
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ABOUT THE CURATOR SERGIO GOMEZ Sergio Gómez is a visual artist born in Puebla and raised in Mexico City. Since 1988, he has resided in Chicago. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Governors State University and received a Master’s Degree in Visual Arts from Northern Illinois University. Sergio’s work has been the subject of more than 45 solo exhibitions in the United States, Romania, Italy, Mexico and Vienna. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Spain, Sweden, Mexico, Austria, Italy, South Korea, England, Kairo, Belgium and the United States. His work is in several private and public collections. In 2018 Sergio was the subject of solo exhibitions at the Museum of the City of Queretaro, Mexico, Museum of the City of Cuernavaca, Mexico, Museum of Art of the City of Cluj, Romania, Museo Internazionale Italia Arte of Turin, Italy and ACS Gallery, Chicago. Besides his studio work, Sergio Gómez is Curator and Director of Exhibitions at the Zhou B. Art Center in Chicago, Director and founder of 33 Contemporary Gallery, co-founder of Art NXT Level®, and founder of Amplified Art Network. He has curated over 100 exhibitions in the US and abroad such as “The National Self-Portrait Exhibition”, “Get Real: New Figurative Realism in Chicago” “CelebrARTE”, “Chicago’s Twelve”, “I AM American Traveling Exhibition” and the “National Wet Paint Biannual MFA Exhibition” which has become a catalyst for emerging painters across the USA. His weekly Art NXT Level podcast and Breakfast with Sergio video show inspires and educates contemporary artists from around the world. Sergio has curated special projects for the Chicago Park District, Chicago Garfield Park Conservatory, ArtSpot Miami International Art Fair, Sirona Fine Arts Miami, Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali of Turin, National Museum of Mexican Art, and Expo Chicago Art Fair among others. Art NXT Level | www.theartistnextlevel.com 33 Contemporary Gallery | www.33contemporary.com Sergio Gomez Studio | www.sergiogomezonline.com
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Helena Wadsley You Asked For It, St. Ambrose is an altered book. I found the book in the gutter while strolling through Athens, Greece. St. Ambrose was an Italian archbishop in the 4th century, and he was a proponent for celibacy, which puts women in the position of the oppressed, so I decided to give the book a more feminine look, that both empowers female sexuality and acknowledges women’s labor through the use of found textiles.
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Margarita Fainshtein Familial legal identification documents, such as passports, immigration documents and etc. are printed on translucent fabric to create an interacting atmosphere where the audience could be seen moving in between layers of the history.
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Kevin Dotson I use the skills and trades of my lineage, adapting them to my art practice, as a way to understand the growth and decay of society. Working in various shipyards and machine shops through the years has developed my appreciation for industrial materials. These materials speak to the important role humans play in their surroundings because of their undisclosed malleability. With the correct amount of heat and force we can change the form and structure of our environment. Rust creeps across the surface and corrosion reveals new layers of material, invading our structures. We battle this invasion because it will weaken the structures that we are dependent on. We build with the idea that it needs to last forever, but permanence is only possible with the maintenance of a working hand. Our structures will be here as long as we are willing to provide upkeep. The sculptures that I build exposes how intent factors into environment by using materials we think of as permanent to comment on realized flaws and movement in our surroundings. Individuals unknowingly participate in the destruction, preservation and manipulation of these structures simply by being present.
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Zhou B Art Center Exhibition Open Threads of Truth Fabric Arts & curated by Sergio G
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Fidelia Castro This work of art brings to our conscience, the lives of children and young people who are currently living inside cages on the Mexican border.
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Helen Dannelly Bleaching and dying corals due to increased water temperatures from climate change.
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Zhou B Art Center Exhibition Opening Friday, January 17 Threads of Truth Fabric Arts & Social Impact curated by Sergio Gomez
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Rosy Petri The Men and Women of the Negro Leagues was created as a way of calling attention to the segregation of both men’s and women’s professional baseball leagues. I grew up in Racine, home of the Racine Belles women’s team. Initially, I was intending to do a piece celebrating the women’s league, but quickly learned that there were no black women allowed to play in the league. After a little digging, I found the names of three black women who played professionally with the men in the Negro Leagues: Tony Stone, Connie Morgan, and Mamie “Peanut” Johnson. I set out to design 6 individual pieces with coordinating uniforms and kente print backgrounds, but the illustrations led to one piece honoring the women and 3 iconic negro league men: Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige, and Willie Mays.
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Zhou B Art Center Exhibition Openin Threads of Truth Fabric Arts & curated by Sergio Gom
ng Friday, January 17 Social Impact mez
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David Schwittek Title of Work: Milpa (le Does it require any spec a single grommet in eac hung on a wall. What’s the work about? picting an abandoned tr milpa. Milpa is a compa inating in southern Mex spread out farming cons cies growing in symbiot sentative of the interwo with Mexican immigrant
Title of Work: Truck (ri This piece depicts the p ty leader Angelo Cabre Mexican side of the bord bodies down into the gro of the border in the form nestled in the back of a draws attention to the fa ed by geography and re ilies and communities c food and culture.
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eft) cial installation? This piece has ch corner and should ideally be
A fiber-based composition deruck, nestled within a patch of anion planting technique origxico, and is a very dense and struct, with many different spetic arrangement, and is repreoven connections the US has ts.
ight) parents of Mexican communiera, standing ghostlike on the der. They send roots from their ound, emerging on the US side m of an enormous chili pepper, a paquetero’s truck. This piece act that, despite being separategressive immigration law, famcan remain connected through
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Zhou B Art Center Exhibition Opening Friday, January 17 Chicago Artists Coalition Threads of Truth Fabric Arts & Social Impact Touch-Trace, 2019. Detail, Gallium. Image courtesy of the artist, photo credit: Jessecurated Meredith.by Sergio Gomez ACS Magazine Threads of Truth | Jnuary 28, 2020 ACS Magazine July/August 2017 Page 59
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Mario Loprete ,Catanzaro 1968 Graduate at Accademia of Belle Arti , Catanzaro (ITALY) Painting for my is the first love. An important, pure love. Creating a painting, starting from the spasmodic research of a concept with which I want to send a message to transmit my message, it’s the base of my painting. The sculpture is my lover, my artistic betrayal to the painting. That voluptous and sensual lover that gives me different emotions, that touches prohibited cords‌ For my Concrete Sculptures I use my personal clothing. Throughout some artistical process, in which I use plaster, resin and cement, I transform them in artworks to hang. My memory, my DNA, my memories remain concreted inside, transforming the person that looks at the artworks a type of post-modern archeologist that studies my work as they were urban artefacts.
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Chicago Artists Coalition Touch-Trace, 2019. Detail, Gallium. Image courtesy of the artist, photo credit: Jesse Meredith.
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Zhou B Art Center Exhibition Opening Friday, January 17 of Truth Fabric Arts & Social Impact curated by Sergio Gomez ACS Magazine ThreadsJuly/August of Truth | Jnuary 28, 2020 ACS Magazine 2017 Page 65
Chicago Artists Coalition Threads Touch-Trace, 2019. Detail, Gallium. Image courtesy of the artist, photo credit: Jesse Meredith.
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Susan Ossman This work is about kinship and ethnic and race relations. It is a reflection on the children’s jingle “my mother and your mother were hanging up cloths, my mother punched your mother right in the nose. What color blood came out. Blue, green, yellow, etc.”
Chicago Artists Coalition Touch-Trace, 2019. Detail, Gallium. Image courtesy of the artist, photo credit: Jesse Meredith.
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Zhou B Art Center Exhibition Threads of Truth Fabric curated by Se
n Opening Friday, January 17 Chicago Artists Coalition c Arts & Social Impact Touch-Trace, 2019. Detail, Gallium. ergioImage Gomez courtesy of the artist, photo credit: Jesse Meredith.
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Gina Lee Robbins Weshe is a study on the collection of "selves" that women cultivate and harbor in navigating the myriad expectations imposed by a dominant culture. Inspired by Akwaeke Emezi's first novel, Freshwater, I am interested in how these determined roles can organically infiltrate the female psyche and how personal and even generational trauma can incite their subconcious calling as a coping mechanism.
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Chicago Artists Coalition Touch-Trace, 2019. Detail, Gallium. Image courtesy of the artist, photo credit: Jesse Meredith.
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Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago
Zhou B Art Center Exhibition Opening Friday, January 17 Threads of Truth Fabric Arts & Social Impact curated by Sergio Gomez
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Krishma Patel Cecil, the Zimbabwean black mane lion was barbarically killed in the summer of 2015! NJ Senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker introduced the CECIL Act. Jimmy Kimmel passionately denounced the killing on his show. Aaron Blaise, the Lion King animator, created art dedicated to Cecil. Major US airlines voluntarily banned the transport of hunted animal heads lending their Voice for the Voiceless. JUST STOP is my voice as an artist to stop trophy hunting of animals approaching endangerment, endangered species, and barbaric hunting practices.
Chicago Artists Coalition Touch-Trace, 2019. Detail, Gallium. Image courtesy of the artist, photo credit: Jesse Meredith.
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Lorna Watkins The piece contains spun hair from the artist and her twin daughters. The forms are egg like, carefully nesting together, contained. Above the spun hair is an old illustration from a nursing studies book depicting the female reproductive system. The remaining space honors the absence of more siblings due to miscarriages. The piece is a dedication to mothers and families who have been affected by miscarriage and infant loss.
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Molly MacDonald I am a non-binary embroidery artist with a focus on queer identity and sexuality.
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Laurie Wessman LeBreton I make sculptures with handmade paper. With these sculptures I try to access something beyond our concrete world and to find meaning and comfort through doing so. Sometimes I do this very directly, as in my piece “A Full Taste of Happiness”, an installation of hundreds of Buddha-like sculptures, and at other times indirectly, as in the abstract hanging sculptures I call “Healing Machines.” For me, paper is the ideal medium to explore these ideas. Paper itself is complex. It is light, responds to movement and appears fragile. As a paper sculptor, I know that it is also pliable, absorbs color beautifully, and is very strong. Abaca, the fiber I use most often, shrinks as it dries, adding the element of chance to all my work. I also enjoy the process of papermaking because of my love of water, for its beauty, sensuality and for its healing qualities. Working with multiples is a strong component of my work. It is both a metaphor and a strategy. Multiples, especially those with variations, point to the simple yet complicated nature of just about everything. As an artistic strategy, they offer an opportunity for experimentation within a structure, for stillness with many variations. As a visual strategy, they calm a busy eye, with each object informing the others. I often suspend these multiples from the ceiling on fine line. Their movement in response to the movement in the air means that the display itself is impermanent, that it also has many variations.
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Anne Bouie In the 1800’s in the United Stated, enslaved African peoples escaped to Florida, ad were welcomed by the Seminole Indians. The United States launched several military campaigns to retrieve "stolen property” and demolish the Seminoles. Three wars were fought before the US Government succeeded. Many of the Africans who escaped were captured men who were skilled in warfare. The US reported them to be “the fiercest and most fearless wars”. The alliance between the two peoples cost millions (in today’s dollars) and became legendary in the annuals of US warfare. This ceremonial shield contains symbols and colors common to both groups, and would be displayed in strategy sessions, and preparations for battle. The botanicals indicate its use in ceremony as opposed to actual battle.
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Allison Geller Since graduating, I have worked to transform these jumpsuits from functional blue-collar garments into a statement on the treatment of feminine-presenting people in the blue- collar field. There are now four total jumpsuits (3 for display, one to wear) each of which is hand embroidered on the back with phrases I have heard in my time working as a sculptor/welder. These phrases range from "Hey little girl!" to "Let's let the boys handle this one", "She's too little to get it done" and my personal favorite: "Little girls can't be welders." This piece is meant to mirror the ways that feminine-identifying people working in male-dominated industries frequently face a variety of discrimination that is subtle enough to avoid recourse, while still maintaining their insidious nature that weighs on the backs of those trying to pursue their passions. During the opening, I intend to maneuver the space while wearing the jumpsuit titled Little girls can't be welders in order to provide a human context to the work.
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Zhou B Art Center Exhibition Openin Threads of Truth Fabric Arts & curated by Sergio Gom
ng Friday, January 17 Social Impact mez
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Dorothy C. Straughter MS/OTR-L SWEETHEART There are multiple names and ephemera for America’s obsession and mockery of the Africanized buttock. ASS, BADONKADUNK, BACKSIDE, BEHIND, BOOTY, BOTTOM, BREECH, BUTTOCK, BUM, BUNS, BUT, CABOOSE, CAN, DERRIERE, DONK, DUFF, FANNY, FATTY, FUNDAMENT, GLUTE, GLUTEUS MAXIMUS, HAMS, HAUNCHES, HEINIE, HIND, HIND QUARTERS, HUNKERS, JUNK, JUNK IN THE TRUNK, KEESTER, NATES, POSTERIOR, REAR, REAR END, RUMP, SEAT, STEATOPYGIA, TAIL, TAIL END, TOUCHAS, TOUCHE, TRUNK. located at the Stony Island Arts Bank. This valentine’s card represents ephemera from the Publisher Bamforth & Co., postmarked, 1938. Having a large but was once considered a disease termed STEATOPYGIA: The state of having substantial levels of adipose tissue on the buttocks and thighs. Today, women throughout the world risk surgery to acquire bigger buts. This work is influenced by studies of ephemera collected by Edward J. Williams People who display their underwear covered buts show themselves as a mockery conveying their ignorance of this history. it is portrayed. It is important to note truth in history no matter how Understanding and appreciating history helps to purge genetic pains of degradation felt by ancestors. away and seems unaware that in the back her buttock is showing. She is sitting on this bench holding a rare blue flower. This double-sided work represents 1 of 10 in the Pathology of Truth collection. American History Quilts©
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Zhou B Art Center Exhibition Opening Friday, January 17 Threads of Truth Fabric Arts & Social Impact curated by Sergio Gomez
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Beatriz Mejia-Krumbein Voiceless faces Eyes wide open bearing witness terrified and mute. Is it fear in their silence? Hear the Echo, If they choose to speak The work VOICELESS point out women and the forgotten ones in this society. Using unconventional materials like fabric fragments, I create metaphors to the fragmentation of each of us in our communities, and as the pieces of fabric are sewn and mended together they present hope in solidarity; The power and sustainable strength gained as we bound with others.
ACS Magazine Threads of Truth | Jnuary 28, 2020 ACS Magazine July/August 2017 Page 103 Issue Page 103
Catherine Schwalbe Medium: silk organza, excerpts from the Supreme Court Decision Meritor Savings Bank vs Vinson (1986) - the decision to hold employers responsible for the behavior of their employees, while in the work place. Repeated images of Mechelle Vinson - victim of 4 years of sexual harassment including rape, boss exposing himself, boss threatening her job if she did not provide sexual behavior for him. 100 pockets honoring the 100 year anniversary of Women’s Suffrage 1920-2020. 45 black and brown pockets symbolizing the gap of years for black and brown people to be able to vote. (See the Voting Rights Act of 1965).
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Suzie Tuchman Cleaning materials are manufactured with complex structures and patterns which are designed not only to remove dirt but to be aesthetically pleasing. Their shape often resembles the female figure. This sculptural garment critiques the role that advertising and media play in downplaying the meaning embedded in domestic work. The sewing involved in creating this work speaks to the repetition inherent in domestic work.
ACS Magazine Threads of Truth | Jnuary 28, 2020 ACS Magazine July/August 2017 Page 107 Issue Page 107
Zhou B Art Center Exhibition Opening Friday, January 17 Threads of Truth Fabric Arts & Social Impact curated by Sergio Gomez ACS Magazine July/August 2017 Page 108 ACS Magazine Threads of Truth | January 28, 2020 Issue Page 108
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Sally Ko Identity Sometimes we have to cover up our authentic identities to protect ourselves. May it be self-imposed, political, social, or religious, I believe we all do it.
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Zhou B Art Center Exhibition Threads of Truth Fabric curated by Se
n Opening Friday, January 17 c Arts & Social Impact ergio Gomez
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Georgia P Schwender Illinois, called “the Prairie State”, was once covered with Tallgrass Prairie, over 22 million acres. Today the Tallgrass Prairie has been destroyed by farming/plowing and urban development. There is only about .01% of this rare ecosystem left in Illinois. This piece “Remembering the Prairie” speaks to this loss.
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Julie McGuire I make art in order to address the issues I face as a human being in this world. By paying attention to life's peculiarities and the nuances of human nature I have found there are many truths. For me, art is not only a source of self-knowledge but also a vehicle for revealing these truths as they are filtered through my own experience. My recent series of "soft" portraits are emotional representations of 21st century anxiety, fear and frustration.
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Teri Carson Mexico is a feminicidal country where women are undervalued and disposable. Bling! began with the exploration of the origins of the Virgin Guadalupe—a syncretic figure born out of the myth of Aztec monster goddess Coatlicue (a tzitzimime). The indigenous origins of Guadalupe provide important strategies of resistance for contemporary women of color and provide useful models and strategies that encourage change, conflict, and resistance instead of passive compliance to violation. The women of Mexico do not benefit from modernity's laws and scientific advances. In 2007, President Felipe Calderón signed a law entitled: Ley General De Acceso De Las Mujeres a Una Vida Libre De Violencia (General Law Providing Women the Right to a Life Without Violence). This law and its provisions continue unenforced and the majority of the feminicides are not investigated.
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India Tresselt Unprecedented. Every day, the commentators and reporters on radio and TV, in print and online, describe the newest headline out of the White House as “unprecedented.” The scandals, the tweets, the unscripted statements. The people. The policies. The actions, the reversals, the departures from sanity, and reality. Things we’ve never seen from our head of state, from our government, ever before. I made this piece in 2018, as I listened to the Judiciary Committee hearings for Brett Kavanaugh. So much more has happened since then that the things included in this piece seem like simply yesterday’s news.
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Sharon Davis The varied and long history of hand knitting in Northern New Mexico and the hues and views of the desert sky that surround me inspires my work. In this wall hanging, I explore rich earthy colors combined with wooden dowels and copper rings.
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Jenni Bateman “Moving forward.” A phrase I’ve used to help tell my story well before it became a wornout piece of business acumen. Fibers, surface design, and sewing are in my DNA; I knew early on that I could push the borders of fiber arts and ‘move forward’ as images and story-lines emerged. Working in various series provides a platform for storytelling primarily celebrated by painters and sculptors. Pulling together all I know about the neurotic fiber processes, I’ve moved forward, pushed boundaries, and ignored the offhanded remarks by the art-world that fibers are not ‘real art’. For me, fibers are and will continue to be a means of continual healing of mind, body, spirit, emotions through the meditative practice of placing one purposeful stitch after another until the story finds clarity. This is my ‘construction technology’. This is my process.
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Hope Wang Drawing from architectural elements as symbols for how people negotiate belonging and agency in public spaces, my work engages provisional aspects of architecture that both embody and belie meaning. I use screenprinting, painting, photography, and weaving to create meticulous reproductions of primarily industrial and commercial facades. In mimicking this imagery onto alternate substrates, my work shifts visual and spatial associations. And I am fascinated by perceptual failure - how an illusion can be maintained, and the moment in which it is broken. I manipulate material to produce simulations of space, revealing the tension between the ubiquity and specificity of architectural surfaces. Through the destabilization of surface and its assumed material conditions, my work questions familiarity as sincerity or as artifice. I am both the skeptic and the nostalgic body, one longing for intimacy and perhaps only finding it in the liminal spaces that belong to nothing in particular.
ACS Magazine Threads of Truth | Jnuary 28, 2020 ACS Magazine July/August 2017 Page 127 Issue Page 127
Kathryn Frund Arctic Ocean, 2020 Synthetic fibers, felt, push pins, monofilament line 39" x 60" "Arctic Ocean" explores our inability to identify the contour of the world's oceans, often considered shapeless voids between continents. This installation reminds us that the spaces between continents are not limitless but vital living ecosystems, currently being filled with plastics and post-consumer waste. The garments, collected from thrift shops, include a bathing suit top, a nod to the accelerated warming of the polar cap. The monochromatic clothing, made from petroleum-based fibers, is selected based on its ability to shimmer and reflect light, as well as its inability to decompose. This piece is part of the Five World Oceans project, which renders the Southern, Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans in fiber.
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Kathy Weaver Destroying Angel was embroidered and hand stitched on bridal satin. The vibrant fabric and labor-intensive hand work contrasts with the machine-like robots.
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Kathy Weaver “Panopticon� depicts a space where specific strategies are used to control a population. Under these conditions obedience and a sense of personal diminishment is achieved by means of constant surveillance and torture. The space, then, belongs to those in control and is lost to the citizen.
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Lilach Scharg Lilith is a female demon who appears in the folklore of many cultures. She represents feminine independence that was achieved at a high personal cost. “Lilith 1” examines this tension between independence and obligation, softness and assertiveness. A female figure is made of, and emerges from, a flowery upholstery fabric that represents the traditional “proper taste”. The fabric is cut and re-assembled into a lacy patchwork by sewing pins in an act that references feminine domestic tasks. The pins penetrate the soft material, and hold the large patchwork together in its temporary unfinished state.
ACS Magazine Threads of Truth | Jnuary 28, 2020 ACS Magazine July/August 2017 Page 135 Issue Page 135
Cecilia de Lima I decided to carry out the pieces for this project on gauze fabric because of the asso ciation with death and the question; how is it that a person would like to be remembered. Pre-Hispanic Peru presents an important source of inspiration in my work. The Incas and Pre-Incas buried their dead in mummy bundles layered with textiles, and all kinds of personal objects. These objects and fabrics narrate a person's character, their social status and importance within ancient Peruvian civilization. This is how I became inspired, imagining that in a few years someome will dig up a mummy bundle made out of gauze which tells us the story of a woman; a "Forbidden Woman" (Mujer Prohibida). Gauze fabric because of its elegance and no bility allows me to tear it, paint it, embroider it, dye it, screen print it, transfer images onto it, among other artistic techniques. Techniques that allow me a level of expres sion with many possibilities and above all give it that aging character, by which stories that are worth digging up are made visible.
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Raven Dock Lost & Found - The after, after the after. Embodying the emotional trauma left unattended, in the hearts of men of color spanning generations. Reflecting if we’re sometimes better off staying lost, never wanting to be found. The The Things We Try To Hide - We tend to hide things from the people we love the most. Never truly knowing if what we’re hiding is for them or...ourselves.
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Nanon Morsink The work is about the pollution of the environment, especially the area around the sea in Andalucia. We need less rules, more social awareness. Make art, not pollution!
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Unraveling by Lita Lovestone Handwoven Textile 2019 This piece was created as a part of a series entitled "Madre Mar". Mother Ocean as the Source of all Life. The Ocean as the beginning of the Earth. The great and mysterious sea, who has been considered a deity in some cultures and revered from time immemorial. And what is happening to the great Mother Ocean now? How are our actions and lack of consciousness as a society impacting the seas? "Unraveling" is a statement about the degradation of this amazingly complex and exquisitely designed marine ecosystem. Segments of this intricate and finely woven cloth, which is a foundation for the fabric of all life on Earth, are being torn apart due to the effects of pollution, climate change, and unsustainable fishing. And yet‌..We can still see the beauty even as we see the threads of life unraveling. Encoded in the inlaid overshot design portions of the weaving is the phrase "Madre Mar", (Mother Ocean) representing the greater Divine intelligence speaking from within the complex design of ecosystems.
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Sara Peak Converey Sums of its Parts: Patterns of Patriotism, 2017. printed US flags, red canvas, thread pvc.
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Lindsay Olson Boundary Layer Statement The top few inches of the earth’s crust is home to some of the most fascinating and necessary micro habitats on the planet. Before early land plants first escaped the oceans, the way would have been prepared by crustose lichens whose enzymes have the ability to break down the hard, rocky surfaces. Lichens attract and retain moisture and dust particles that in turn create the perfect conditions for micro plants like mosses and liverworts to survive desiccating winds and manage water resources. Mosses also provide a home for the water-loving hyphae of fungi and a microscopic zoo of creatures. These small organisms form the necessary foundation for a succession of larger vascular plants to thrive. Medieval Reliquaries from the Art Institute of Chicago inspired the creation of this work. These bejeweled receptacles housed the venerated bones of saints and provided an apt metaphor for valuing and celebrating this community of diminutive plants and organisms.
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Priscilla Perkins This work focuses on Central American migrants and asylum seekers at the US/Mexico Border
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Vivian Han Lin Thy Eve is the Frankenstein mutation of a research lab's failed knitting machine experiments. This sock monkey from hell is the product of a madwoman computer scientist's knitting gone horribly wrong in a nuclear accident. Thy Eve is stitched together from stuffed animals, teapot cozies, tiny sweaters, and a variety of other indeterminable knitted objects to create a sapient organism that is both multi- and uni- cellular. What was once an unwanted trash pile of innocuous frayed scraps has morphed into something both comical and grotesque.
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Yulia Dvorah Shtern My work is centered upon environmental issues, and is created from the medium of up- cycled materials mostly consisting of post consumer paper, cardboard, and fabric left- overs. The goal of this body of work is to bring more attention onto the urgent issues of examining our impact on animal life, minimizing pollution, and creating environmental sustainability.
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Vicky Lentz As I search for innovative ways to express our human interaction with the environment, I explore several mediums. Through paint, recycled metal, found materials and clay, the transformation and fluidity of life remains a constant theme. Mining beneath the surface, the liquid motion of life searches for structure and form. Repetition and pattern are ways for me to enter into this felt, meditative dialogue. The underlying, invisible natural structure is sensed and expressed in visual form. As our modern human populations continue to concentrate in the large urban areas across the globe, this singular, rural life lived in a direct, sensitive dialogue with nature is richly significant. Through my research in paint, sculpture and installations I share this life of connection
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David Versluis While this piece does not strictly fall into the genre of Fiber Art it does carefully use torn fabric pieces to expose its thread elements as metaphors. The torn fabric is meant to be a symbol and reminder of the need for humanity to love one another and work toward righteousness and justice. As a result this piece seems fitting for the exhibition, "Threads of Truth". It serves as a collage and homage to Nelson Mandela who as a peacemaker and social activist worked to repair the torn fabric of society through racial reconciliation.
ACS Magazine Threads of Truth | Jnuary 28, 2020 ACS Magazine July/August 2017 Page 157 Issue Page 157
Cassandra Walter’s Women's traditional art forms, including embroidery, quilting, and crochet, have long been relegated to decorative or wearable craft — not considered Art, and definitely non- threatening. So what better art forms to start a conversation about sexism, paternal or religiously biased laws, and lack of bodily autonomy for women? The soft, layered materials with hand stitching juxtapose with the graphic surprise of a three-dimensional vulva. The ideas being birthed respond to the litany of politically and socially oppressive laws and norms about women and their bodies. The three quilt squares down the middle are historical perspectives: the Vagina Dentata sexual violence deterrent (1800s or earlier); Roe V. Wade's indirect privacy claim (1973); and the pussy hat of the first post-Trump Women's March. To the left (the Mansplaining side) is Senator Akin's infamous public defense of anti- abortion laws asserting that in cases of "legitimate" rape the body has a way of shutting things down; the preference for submissive, early pubescent lack of pubic hair; and the need to visually please to unhealthy extents with a glitter bomb. The right side (Vagina and vulva too!) celebrates as women fight back with the DIY birth control pamphlets on Hobby Lobby shelves; women-centered sex shops to overcome the pleasure gap; and resistance to a non-essentials tax on tampons. In between is casual sexism, the loud and unwelcome insistence of the privileged gender. But really, nine squares barely starts the conversation. There's something new every day, and women will be there with Art and Craftivism.
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Evee Erb Through the marriage of clay and fiber, my work uses material, form, and structure to examine the relationship between gender, society, and the individual.
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Katherine Steichen Rosing SERPENTINE I feel a spiritual and philosophical connection to trees and forests and find many lessons for our human existence in urban and wild forests. For decades, the rhythmic patterns of tree trunks, and color and texture relationships in painting dominated my work. In recent years, as I began to study forest ecosystems and related environmental issues, I began creating immersive installations of large scale 3D suspended sculptural tree forms, paintings, and drawings to bring the forest inside. Serpentine is one of seven suspended sculptures honoring the ash tree and exploring the life cycle of the emerald ash borer. This series of 3D works holistically explore the relationship between the ash tree and the beautiful little emerald ash borer beetle which through its natural impetus for survival, metamorphoses through life forms that ultimately kill the ash tree. During the larval stage, the hungry larvae eat the phloem just below the surface of the bark -- cutting off the nutrient supply to the tree crown, and killing the tree. Beautiful serpentine patterns are created during this stage, visible only after the bark has been removed, and it is this stage that Serpentine depicts. Serpentine and the other 3D works in that series was created for a 2018 solo installation titled, Emeralds to Ashes that included many large scale 2D and 3D works documenting characteristics of the life cycle of the emerald ash borer and Ash trees, in addition to stump rubbings of city trees felled for public safety after infestation. (Funded by an Individual Artist Fellowship grant from the Madison Arts Commission in 2018, Madison, Wisconsin. See www.studioksr.com for more images.) The emerald ash borer beetle arrived in North America embedded in wood shipping palettes with no natural predator here, and was transported accidentally throughout the Midwest and beyond by people moving wood. The ash tree is now approaching near extinction in the American Midwest from an infestation of this invasive species. I see the world as a nuanced and complex system. So while I mourn the loss of the magnificent ash, a mighty shade tree with its beautiful diamond patterned bark, I empathize with the brilliant little beetle causing this destruction— it merely does what nature programs it to do. As a child I experienced the loss of the magnificent American Elms, the most beautiful part of our modest neighborhood, when Dutch Elm disease ravaged the species which is now nearly extinct. The loss of these magnificent shade trees impacts our local landscape, increases cooling costs and in a small but symbolic way, contributes to global warming, and is symptomatic of human impact on our environment. Let us be conscious of our actions. Plant trees where you can, and nurture the trees you live with.
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Judith Roston Freilich Although this piece was created in the 1970s, it continues to remind us of the cycles of organic life. We are part of the same fragile, complex ecosystem that existed in the early 70s. In the decades since then, however, we’ve failed to preserve it. This piece represents the beauty of life’s cycles and the urgent need to reverse the path we have taken.
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Patricia Davoust I feel a growing sense of frustration and urgency to respond in a meaningful way to human caused climate crisis, specifically, the deadly calamity of plastics overwhelming our oceans and waterways. We are choking ourselves and every other living being on the Earth with our plastic waste! From the top of the planet to the deepest part of the ocean, there is no place left that doesn’t have measurable plastic in the environment. This piece illustrates my frustration with the problem. I wanted to give the sense that we are swimming in our own waste, unable to come up for air! Life is trapped between the obvious plastic floating on the surface such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and the hidden particles of suspended micro-plastics. We are waving like a jellyfish pushed and pulled by the movements of the oceans. At the top is a wall of plastic blocking access to a clean breath of air, at the bottom, the hem is dripping with oil.
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Katherine Van Drie I've Been Told, 2019 | Fabric, Wood
The influences of social media and the diet industry are far reaching and have long-term effects on our physical and mental health. The diet culture has impacted the way we define and perceive ourselves and has led to increased stress, depression and a rise in mental illness. This current body of work examines the struggle to reach unattainable, homogenous goals of lifestyle, health and beauty that we are told will signal our significance and success.
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Yvette Kaiser Smith A while back, I began making sculptures that explored dialogues dealing with the nature of being human, of personal individuality, and of collective identity. During an exploration into materials and processes that would support my conceptual agenda, I began developing my signature process of crocheting fiberglass. All cultures seem to have their own lace traditions. If identity is a hybrid of our heritage, then lace is, as tradition of time, labor, and creativity, one tiny point of intersection that connects us all. Few years later, I was looking for a way to break up a line of 80+ crocheted fiberglass discs by inserting spaces, in a seemingly random, asymmetrical, and unpredictable manner. My mathematician husband pointed me towards π to use as a random pattern generator. I realized then that mathematical patterns are found in all manner of life and that numbers are in all aspects of identity as numbers label, classify, and define our place and identity within family, community, and the greater population. Mathematical structures became part of my conceptual toolbox. This work merges a handcraft tradition which by default associates with female, industrial materials stereotypically associated with male, abstraction, and mathematical constructs to create one body, one hybrid to challenge old stereotypes and conservative labels that divide us. Etude from pi . . . 47564 is a direct articulation of a sequence of 5 digits from the number π. Although individual parts appear same in depth from front view, they do vary. Value 4 is closest to the wall and value 7 pushes away from the wall the farthest. As one walks from one side of the sculpture to the other, form activates space or flattens out. Viewers’ perceptions of the group or individuals within this group change. But this hybrid’s identity and physical form stand strong.
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Judy Bales This piece is part of a series of works alluding to atmospheric conditions. It speaks of the reclamation of industrial materials by nature. The use of cold, functional materials such as window screen and metal chain, utilized to express the organic beauty of nature and natural phenomena, implies that nature and beauty ultimately will triumph regardless of how humans abuse the earth.
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Elizabeth Fram In response to the wearisome, disheartening, and infuriating 2016 elections, this piece is pure fantasy. Its lack of reality is acknowledged by the cartoon-like speech bubble encapsulating a word that will never pass our current president’s lips.
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Barbara Jugovac The Burning ACS July/August 2017 Page 176 28, 2020 Issue Page 176 ACSMagazine Magazine Threads of Truth | January
Shawn Quinlan Dark Cloud
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Lena Bartula Mend the World, 2019 Mixed Media
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Moskowitz Bayse Model of an Earth Fastener the Hierapolis Fault (Plutonion), 2019 Maria on Jose Mir Steel, enamel, limestone, and bronze Atravesada, 2019 Acrylic on linen with thorns 43 x 20 x 13 inches 109.2 x 50.8 x 33 cm
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ACS Magazine Dig www.acs-mag.com/d
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ACS Magazine Threads of Truth | Jnuary 28, 2020 ACS Magazine July/August 2017 Page 181 Issue Page 181
Lily Martina Lee In my current body of work I am handweaving burial shrouds to commemorate the victims of the Great Basin Murders, a grouping of unsolved homicides occurring in the Western United States from the 1970s to 1990s sharing the characteristics of female victims being found dumped along the region's highways. Using Fiberworks, a weaving software program I develop original weave patterns using data from each case including height, weight and age estimates as well as the date and GPS coordinates of when and where the victim was located. The density of the weaving communicates the postmortem interval. While this work is an attempt to broach the anonymity of unidentified human remains through devotional craft, the resulting woven panels remain visually austere illustrating the absence of information that characterizes many cold cases. Through this work I seek to give these victims a gesture of respect not previously afforded to them.
ACS July/August 2017 Page 182 28, 2020 Issue Page 182 ACSMagazine Magazine Threads of Truth | January