Know the Weaver Series # 3 August – September 2014
Christy Matson Independent Artist, University Lecturer and TC2 Owner
WEBSITE: www.cmatson.com
Christy Matson is an artist living and working in Los Angeles, CA. Her work has been included in recent exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Arts Houston, The Milwaukee Art Museum, The Knoxville Museum of Art, the Asheville Museum of Art, and The San Francisco Museum of Craft+Design. Besides, her work is in the collection of the Smithsonian Museum of Ameican Art’s Renwick Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Craft Portland, OR. 1. When and how did you get interested in weaving? I began weaving as an undergraduate student at the University of Washington in 1999. I wasn’t hooked instantly though. After finishing my degree Prof. Layne Goldsmith invited me to accompany a group from my university to the Jacquard Center in Hendersonville, NC. I met Bethanne Knudsen there, learned how to prepare files for an industrial Jacquard loom and knew instantly this is what I wanted to do. I thought I might go into textile design, but on a
subsequent trip to the Jacquard Center, I met artist Lia Cook who pointed me towards the Graduate MFA program at CCA. It was there that I first worked with a TC-1 loom. The Jacquard just opened up possibilities to weaving that I felt limited by on the floor loom. Furthermore, I felt that the TC-1/TC2 allowed even more flexibility than the industrial Jacquards in terms of the material choices and selection of weave structures. 2. Would you call weaving an art or science? Has your perception of weaving and the possibilities it offers to an artist evolved over the years?
Great question - weaving is SIMULTANEOUSLY art and science. It is also BOTH a 2dimensional and 3-dimensional image and object, which is what makes it is such a unique and magical process. In my own work, I am primarily concerned with weaving as an art form but I would never discount its applications in other fields such as architecture, science and technology. No, I don’t think my perception of weaving and its possibilities has evolved much over time - Once I had my first taste of what was possible with the Jacquard I immediately understood it as limitless (and yet with lots parameters!) - I still feel that way about weaving and understand that it will take me more than my own lifetime to exhaust its possibilities. This is why I stick with it. 3. What prompted the switch from teaching weaving at SAIC to being an independent artist? Has the transition also meant a change in the kind of work that you are now involved in? I left SAIC in spring of 2012, right after receiving tenure. I was eight months pregnant and my husband has been offered a teaching position in the Los Angeles area that was too good to say no to. We were ready for change - I had been in Chicago 7 years, and he had been there 12 (he was the Chair of the Photography Department at SAIC). We wanted to be in the California landscape - closer to water and in warm weather year-round.
And yes the shift from Chicago to California and perhaps moreover from teaching fulltime to teaching part-time (I am now at Cal State University Long Beach) has definitely shifted the work that I am involved in now. I have so much more studio time than I ever did before (and I also have my own TC-2 to work on now!) This has allowed me to branch out and explore new collaborations and investigations into different structures. I’ve had a steady stream of commissioned pieces that I’ve also been working on over the last few years, which was never the case in Chicago - I mainly focused on working from exhibition to exhibition. 4. How has your experience been working on the TC2? What made you decide on getting one for your own design studio? I LOVE the TC-2. I worked on a TC-1 from 2003-2012 and I find the improved speed and reliability of the TC-2 to be phenomenal. I no longer worry about heddles that might stop lifting mid-way through a piece - they all work, and especially when working in multiple layers - this is critical! I decided I needed a loom for my studio about 1 month after arriving in LA. Through communication with Vibeke, I realized that the closest TC-1/TC-2 were in Albuquerque, NM and Oakland, CA - this was not going to work. I worked with an non-profit organization called USA Projects to raise the funds for my TC-2.