Here is the last batch of photos from the
American Tapestry Alliance's
American Tapestry Biennial 9 (ATB9) show at the
Fort Wayne Museum of Art. I do hope to see someone's photos of the missing tapestries when they are up though!
***This just in! I was able to get some good photos from a wonderful student who will let me post them. I will get those photos up this week so you can see "the missing" tapestries.
This is the last in a series of blog posts about this show. Click these links to read the others:
A Call to Action for Tapestry Artists
American Tapestry Biennial 9
ATB9 goes New Mexico
The shape of tapestry and ATB9
It's all Sarah's fault (and more ATB9)
Linda Wallace's piece DisConnect won one of the Teitelbaum awards. I loved studying this piece. The color use is wonderful with beautiful gradations in the forms (see detail below). The colors in the borders change as you look around the piece (and I can't swear to it, but I think she used some chenille in the rich brown parts). Her technique is wonderful and the imagery about women and cultural burdens is engaging.
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| DisConnect, Linda Wallace; 48 x 32 x 1 inch, wool, cotton, linen, silk, metallics |
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| DisConnect, detail |
Thomas Cronenberg's tapestry is one I have been waiting to see. I love the drawing-like lines and the simplicity of the piece. And I loved finding secrets in it I couldn't see in the catalog photo.
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| Daheim (At Home), Thomas Cronenberg; 61 x 43.7 inches, linen, wool, silk, mercerized cotton |
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| Daheim (At Home), detail |
Lialia Kuchma's piece Crane is large and fortunately they hung it in a spot I could stand back and look at it. I loved the flat but intense blue of the crane figure. The yarn had no variation in it except up near the head and the intenseness worked well in this piece. The flat plane is broken up with black lines which give it a little motion. The background field is hugely textured and interesting in itself.
Here is what Lialia says about this tapestry in the
catalog:
regarding the tapestry CRANE -- during the period of disquiet in Ukraine, especially after the disappointment of the last election I felt compelled to give substance to this concern. thus the crane, a symbolic and popular image in Ukraine-the blue shape of the crane defined in its boldness on a heavily textured field appears to hover in a stasis over a geography of a restless history.
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| Crane, Lialia Kuchma; 63 x 87 inches; wool, cotton |
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| Crane, detail |
Cecilia Blomberg's piece was one that I looked at several times before I felt at ease with it... and then challenged again. It is both abstract and realistic and I finally felt like I could see the water and the boat as a realistic portrayal and then shift back into the more abstract work I saw when I first looked. It is a lovely piece.
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| Mates, Cecilia Blomberg; 35 x 49 inches, cotton, wool, linen |
She used a lot of eccentric weft in the water.
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| Mates, detail |
Alex Friedman's Macondo is about the Deepwater oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. Alex writes in the
catalog,
'Macondo' represents both the subjective and environmental dark forces that obscure the clear waters. The oil dispersants used are banned in parts of the world. How long these toxins remain and what the eventual damage remains to be seen. However, in time, nature has a way of overcoming these adversities and my hope, symbolically represented by the bright green tips of the sea plants, is that there will be some restoration of the natural order.
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| Macondo, Alex Friedman; 72 x 38 inches, wool, cotton |
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| Macondo, detail |
Becky Stevens' Home Safe Home made me think of being wrapped in my house (probably reading a book and absorbed in some imaginary land) while the cold night and sea monsters roamed outside.
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| Home Safe Home, Becky Stevens; 24 x 18 inches, wool |
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| Home Safe Home, detail |
Elizabeth Buckley's
Dialogues Through the Veil also bears mention. It is also a lovely piece with outstanding technique and wonderful secrets that you see the more you look at it. You can see her piece on the
ATA website at this link.
I am including the video of the show here again in case you missed it the first time.
