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Second Lives: The Age-Old Art of Recycling Textiles at TM
20 Dec '10
5 min read
Green is the third in a series of Textile Museum exhibitions exploring the cultural and artistic significance of specific colors in textile art; it follows Red and Blue. The exhibition also provides a forum for contemporary fiber artists to contribute to the global conversation about the environment. “We are excited to inspire reflection on environmental concerns facing us today through the artwork in Green” says Textile Museum Director Maryclaire Ramsey. “This is such an important conversation, one uniting people all over the world. And it can be informed by looking at the cross-cultural significance of the color green historically.”
To assemble the group of artists represented in Green, The Textile Museum issued a call for entry to contemporary fiber artists across the country and around the globe. Exhibition co-curators Rebecca A.T. Stevens and Lee Talbot reviewed more than 1,000 works of art submitted by nearly 300 artists. From this group, the co-curators selected 32 contemporary artists—representing 18 U.S. states and 6 countries—to participate in the exhibition.
The artwork in Green: the Color and the Cause will address multiple themes, including:
• Connections between Man and Nature
• Water: its importance to the natural, and manmade, world
• Life Cycle: nature as symbols of life cycle stages—birth, growth and decay
• Recycling: creating new art forms from recycled materials
• Green as a Color: the human perception of and associations with this color
For the first time in its 85-year history, The Textile Museum will present two site-specific installations as part of this exhibition: a handmade paper sculpture of the ecosystem of coastal New Jersey that emulates the ebb and flow of an important estuary (Estuary: Moods and Modes, 2007, Nancy Cohen), and a lace-covered arbor embedded with grass seed, installed in the museum's garden, that will sprout, mature and die during the period the exhibition is on view (Arbor Lace, 2002, Michele Brody).
Although united in theme and color, the objects on view in the exhibition are diverse in structure and size. For her Hothouse Flowers, artist Maggie Hiltner used castoff household textiles and embroidered figures on a bright green background to critique the distancing of mankind from nature. A Woman of Substance by Jackie Abrams comments on consumerism and today's “throw away” culture with a basket coiled from discarded silk blouses.
The basket's core elements are held in place by a single thread, which for the artist symbolizes the threads of life that hold us together and give us a common framework. Gyöngy Laky's ALTERATIONS, which was featured on the cover of the New York Times magazine in spring 2008, incorporates tree pruning to literally spell out “The Green Issue.” Laky could be speaking for many of the artists in Green when she says, “I am interested in making a small dent in changing [i.e., altering] attitudes about the environment and our relationship to it.”
Green: the Color and the Cause is co-curated by Lee Talbot, Associate Curator, Eastern Hemisphere Collections, and Rebecca A.T. Stevens, Consulting Curator, Contemporary Textiles. The exhibition will be on view at The Textile Museum April 16 through September 11, 2011.
To assemble the group of artists represented in Green, The Textile Museum issued a call for entry to contemporary fiber artists across the country and around the globe. Exhibition co-curators Rebecca A.T. Stevens and Lee Talbot reviewed more than 1,000 works of art submitted by nearly 300 artists. From this group, the co-curators selected 32 contemporary artists—representing 18 U.S. states and 6 countries—to participate in the exhibition.
The artwork in Green: the Color and the Cause will address multiple themes, including:
• Connections between Man and Nature
• Water: its importance to the natural, and manmade, world
• Life Cycle: nature as symbols of life cycle stages—birth, growth and decay
• Recycling: creating new art forms from recycled materials
• Green as a Color: the human perception of and associations with this color
For the first time in its 85-year history, The Textile Museum will present two site-specific installations as part of this exhibition: a handmade paper sculpture of the ecosystem of coastal New Jersey that emulates the ebb and flow of an important estuary (Estuary: Moods and Modes, 2007, Nancy Cohen), and a lace-covered arbor embedded with grass seed, installed in the museum's garden, that will sprout, mature and die during the period the exhibition is on view (Arbor Lace, 2002, Michele Brody).
Although united in theme and color, the objects on view in the exhibition are diverse in structure and size. For her Hothouse Flowers, artist Maggie Hiltner used castoff household textiles and embroidered figures on a bright green background to critique the distancing of mankind from nature. A Woman of Substance by Jackie Abrams comments on consumerism and today's “throw away” culture with a basket coiled from discarded silk blouses.
The basket's core elements are held in place by a single thread, which for the artist symbolizes the threads of life that hold us together and give us a common framework. Gyöngy Laky's ALTERATIONS, which was featured on the cover of the New York Times magazine in spring 2008, incorporates tree pruning to literally spell out “The Green Issue.” Laky could be speaking for many of the artists in Green when she says, “I am interested in making a small dent in changing [i.e., altering] attitudes about the environment and our relationship to it.”
Green: the Color and the Cause is co-curated by Lee Talbot, Associate Curator, Eastern Hemisphere Collections, and Rebecca A.T. Stevens, Consulting Curator, Contemporary Textiles. The exhibition will be on view at The Textile Museum April 16 through September 11, 2011.
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