ART FOR EVERYONE

Enormous fabric art installation is coming to St. Charles this summer — and volunteers are needed

By Diane Krieger Spivak

Photos by Mikayla Whitmore and Tom Loonan; proposal provided

manda Browder says art is for everyone. “People say to me, ‘I’m not creative.’ I tell them that’s ridiculous,’” says Browder, a Brooklynbased large-scale fabric installation artist. She’s known for bright, geometric designs that grace entire buildings in swaths of glorious color. Thanks to a $10,000 grant obtained through the St. Charles Arts Council,

Browder is scheduled to bring her talents to St. Charles, where she’ll set up shop and invite locals to participate in creating the city’s own installation art project. The installation will be on display at the St. Charles Municipal Building in mid-August, according to the council website. “When I work with a site, we do a call for fabric from the area,” says Browder. Volunteers then take part in public sewing days. “People can drop in if they want, take a peek and just chat, but I also offer to teach people how to sew, and we all build it as a community, so it’s based on volunteer support.” She feels contemporary art often creates a separation between the audience and art process. “So I try to incorporate that through these projects and give people the opportunity to participate in different ways — donating fabric, hanging out, coming and being part of the installation,” she says. “There are a lot of different ways where people’s stories can be enveloped and worked into the project.” Browder does a lot of archiving, interviewing and talking with people about how they participated. “For example, a lot of times it’s hard to release certain pieces of fabric because it’s connected to stories of family. This gives an opportunity to pay homage to that story and support the history of the local people,” she says. How does the artist pull off such a huge piece successfully? “A little bit of blind faith and mathematics,” says Browder. “It’s a lot of geometry.” In addition to her creative artistry (she learned to sew in 4-H), she has a background in math, her original college major before switching to art. Browder earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Wisconsin and has taught at various locations, including the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “Fiber wasn’t supported in the early 2000s,” she says. “My work was seen as craft-based. I was making sculpture and showing, but not included in general art history.” Her first large-scale piece was in Chicago’s Humboldt Park area. Her first communitybased project took place in 2010 after she moved to Brooklyn. “I grew up in the mountains where everything was bigger than me,” says the Montana native. “Scale is really important. I also want art to be an everyday experience; not confined to museums.” For those who want to donate fabric, she advises pieces larger than a foot square, not stretchy and in bold colors. All ages are invited. The St. Charles Arts Council will coordinate sewing days in August. Browder invites anyone to “pull out those sewing machines and dust them off, even if you don’t know how to sew. I will teach you,” she says. “There are no preconceived notions of what’s correct. Just show up and say hi.”

WANT TO GET INVOLVED?

Email St. Charles Arts Council Executive Director Kathy Hill at info@stcharlesartscouncil.org.