hey baby, can I be your guardian?

I recently got reminded of the work by NYC artist Elana Adler. She was in an exhibit that I curated last year. The work I had known at the time was mostly from her You Are My Duchess series.


She describes the series:

This series of thirty-two samplers is intended to be provocative and evoke emotion. It is a contemporary feminist interpretation of women’s work and an objectification of my personal experience. Each captures a moment, giving these words a visual presence, a power, and a state of concreteness. These words were hurled casually and heard quickly but required hours of time-consuming, careful stitching.

The physically delicate, traditionally feminine, form of the piece engages the viewer and confronts him/ her with a sweetness that may mask its crassness and vulgarity.

You read one sampler. Perhaps you are amused, but as you continue reading and consider the body as an entire collection, the response changes. The inherent filth emerges. It is a beautification of an assault. Perhaps in the moment these statements are meant to compliment, but most don’t find vulgar, highly sexualized statements whispered or screamed at them by random strangers complimentary. Rather, they are an invasion of personal space.

The body of samplers is a contemporary and unexpected response to
unsolicited and unwanted attention. They reduce the complex emotional experience of being heckled by catcalls to a simple piece of women’s work.

As a woman who has lived in NYC for 5 years. I felt the work immediately- walking down 4th avenue in Brooklyn feels like you are walking a catwalk where the entire audience is crude and rude men. Elana's tender stitches and mass collection of "calls" puts the experience into a thoughtful context.

I am especially drawn to some recent pieces on her website where she combines fiber materials with hard materials.


In stuck a form is both attached and exuding from a traditional chair. Stuck in this space. An entire series of works in this vain of metaphor would be awesome.


In guardian she takes a hand knitted animal (perhaps a sheep) form and attaches it to a cast iron form resulting in an interesting sculpture of very different surfaces. Kind of like mixing your favorite childhood stuffed animal in with a knight in armor. (2 guardians)

Elana is a young artist and is still finding consistency in her work and voice but from remembering her personality and being reminded of her intelligent take on things I look forward to seeing what she does next.

q and a.

Just finishing answering some questions for someone researching me and thought I would share a little. They are the ones that I thought may say something a little different then previous interviews.

- Why is your subject important to you? I work autobiographically and my relationships are my everyday, they are what sustain me, inspire me, challenge me, build me up, and break me down. I also want to make work about something that everyone can relate to and everyone has relationships or desires towards one.


- What are the inspirations behind your work? my daily life, the beauty of everyday life, the beauty found in imperfection

- What artists have influenced you? Sally Mann, the photographer, was very influential to me early on as an artist. She made very powerful work about her children, Immediate Family, and it was very personal and raw. She received a lot of criticism about the work and the sexuality expressed by her children but she stood up for the honesty in her work and acknowledged the reality of childrens behaviors and how they mimic us. I was always inspired by the risk that she took and her courage in standing up for it.
Tracy Emin for how personal her work is - to take such incredible personal content but make it affect and relate to us all is amazing.
Lousie Bourgeois for so many reasons I cannot count.


- How do you develop your ideas? I am kind of always thinking about what is next but generally an idea comes to me and I spend a lot of time thinking about it, writing about it, visualizing it, and if it stays around long enough it gets made. I generally think of my work either in series or for a specific exhibit or space so this informs the process a lot. The work take so long to make that while I am making one body of work I am thinking about what is next?

- How do you display finished pieces? it varies but generally pinned on the wall. I do not like showing my work stretched or behind glass. By stretching the fabric is loses its sense of flow and gravity it stops "being" fabric. And as soon as you put a piece like mine behind glass it feels like an artifact. My work is very much about the present moment and not about memory so keeping it away from the box and glass helps the viewer to come at it this way. Often their is an aspect of installation as well...I like to have something that places the object in the home more then the white box of the gallery- like a lamp, or chair, or table. I like to take the viewer a little out of "Gallery" viewing mode and enter the work more personally.

OKAY!!!! BACK TO stiching.

process taking over....

In research for something else I came to the work of NYC artist Elisa D'Arrigo and am super intrigued. She makes gorgeous, often large, sewn structures. In one moment they are a drawing and in another a structural space, and in the next a 3 dimensional map.

Her work deals with ideas of memory, layering, but most importantly process. According to her she starts with some type of memory but the process of making takes over and guides her work towards whatever it becomes. One piece may take months or years to complete.


She selected these quotes from solo shows of hers to talk about her work.

The most important reading finds the artist's desire for extendability- the sense that any given work could continue the gesture of its making, that the composition could extend indefinitely into space, that the light might continue and spread.

-By Stephen Westfall, excerpted from a brochure essay accompanying 2007 exhibition at Elizabeth Harris Gallery.

In her need to find a voice for the silent workings of nature, its slow movement across time, the artist has authored a process rather than a completion of form. Her ever-growing configuration begins small but ends up by being large, in all the meanings of the adjective.

-By Jonathan Goodman, excerpted from a catalogue essay accompanying a 2003 exhibition at the Elizabeth Harris Gallery.

I would love to see her work in person and am hoping that I will get that opportunity in my research. Much of her work is large scale so that can never be properly experience on line.
See more of her work here.

canceled distinctions

I feel like there is just so many amazing and exciting things being done in "fiber" I just cannot keep up. This varies from fiber artists doing more and more exciting and unexpected things to more traditional "fine artists" choosing to make works or series with fiber materials. To the point that even making those distinctions are needing to be canceled more and more. In an article that I am working on I will discuss this further which makes me excited as it gives me an excuse to research it further, talk about it further, and think about it more.

A great example of this is a recent article on Joanna Mattera's blog. Joanna writes very thoughtful and academic posts on being an artist. She always thoroughly covers the art fairs that she attends. She is currently writing on Miami. Her most recent post was on a trend of "black" objects that she saw. But as I scrolled down the post I was astounded, inspired, and excited by how many of these pieces are incorporating fiber from embroidery to weaving to stretched vinyl (actually kind of a lot of vinyl.) Most of these artists are approaching fiber in a VERY contemporary way but to me it is all exciting.

Have you seen this trend of fiber in mainstream galleries? Do you love seeing your work hanging next to paintings and drawings or prefer it not?

Both images above from Joanna's blog.

in house...

I am loving having my studio in the house already. I actually got work done over the weekend!! Whenever I was sitting and resting I would pull my frame over to work. (FYI about 30 minutes to and hour per letter what am I thinking???)
But really with a kiddo this is so much better as when T takes forever to eat lunch or take a bath or whatever, I can just go get my work and stitch while we hang out.
I am delighted by this as I really need to up my productivity to get all the work I need to get done.

As we settle in here I am excited about all the possibilities for teaching and fingers crossed some of them will turn out well for me. Also looking forward to a few coffee dates with local artists. Slowly this place will feel more and more like home.

Woven Stories....

Go Ann Street Gallery in Newburgh, NY!! You may remember that I had some work in a recent exhibit here and the reason that I had some work was another stitching friend of mine had exhibited there before and recommended me and now they have an entire exhibit of woven works.


I am not sure if it is simply that they are on my radar now or if they have opened more to exhibiting all the fab fiber work out there but either way this is something I like to see. Galleries that recognize the exciting and relevant work being made by artists working in textiles. I prefer shows that are more conceptually curated or that combine textile works with more traditionally accepted fine art mediums and Ann Street has done both. So for all of us textile loving and working artist this is one gallery to keep on the radar.


Their current show Woven Stories: Contemporary Tapestries, features hand-woven works.

The artistry of tapestry weaving in a long and continuous one, ancient tapestry specimens can be found in the works of ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Peruvians, early European, and Native Americans. Even in our age of a twenty first century world dominated by technology, this ancient art form is thriving and just as relevant today as in past millenniums.

In Woven Stories, contemporary artist-weavers approaches to the medium are highlighted, and we see a broad range of works, each rich in imagery. Viewers will see weavings that convey challenging messages, explorations of space and form, painterly abstractions, landscapes, and portraits. These diverse tapestries also range in size, from large scale hangings to smaller sized works, three dimensional and mixed media pieces. As a group, the work is thought-provoking with each artist using their own unique visual language to address modern day issues such as gender, politics, and the environment. While the exhibition Woven Stories is only a snapshot view of current tapestry weavings, our aim in showcasing these works is to promote public awareness of the art of tapestry. We hope this exhibition encourages further interest in the medium, while raising the profile of tapestry as a mainstream art form.

Artist featured in the exhibition are: Kate Anderson, Janet Austin. George-Ann Bowers, Barbara Burns, Betty Ferguson, Louise Halsey, Susan Iverson, Tari Kerss, Mary Kester, Lialia KuchmaSusan McGehee, Margo MacDonald, Pavlos Mayakis, John Paul Morabito, Sue Pretty, Erin M. Riley, Sarah Salin, Cameron Taylor-Brown, Betty Vera, Linda Wallace, Sherri Woodard Coffey, and Marzena Ziejka.

The exhibition is on view through Saturday, January 28, 2012. The exhibition was curated by Virginia Walsh, Director of the Ann Street Gallery.

I was delighted to see so many names that I know and love and have chosen to exhibit as a curator myself. Sadly the website made the images of the works difficult to identify to I cannot confidently credit the works to the individual artists. See more of the show here.

The needleworking community loses a legend.

Read the New York Times obituary of Erica Wilson the "Julia Child's" of needlework. She brought needlepoint and cross stitch back to the masses in the 50's. Where would we be now if she had not? Who knows.

beautiful light.

Taking shots of the beautiful light instead of getting to work. Feeling a little tired and under motivated today. Really wanting a long bath and a little nap. (holiday party last night.) So I am trying to get inspired- especially since, like a manic person, I took on a 3rd solo show for 2012 yesterday.
What am I thinking?


Oh well. The thing as an artist is that you kind of feel like you need to take opportunities as they come because you never know where they will lead and what might come of them. So as long as it is a GOOD opportunity I have a hard time saying no. Really I just want to get my work out there and share it with my audience and hopefully get some of it to live in collectors homes. So one more reason my fingers need to be stitching....like I needed another.

kicking myself...

I wish that I had known about the current show at Jenkins Johnson Gallery when I was in Chelsea a few weeks ago. Full Fathom Five seems like a very well edited and curated exhibit of abstract works that appear to all be unplanned works. It seems to me that all of the artist work in ways were their medium or their minds pull the work towards whatever end it becomes. Meaning they do not start with an overly specific plan or vision. This is especially of interest to me as I am working on an article about embroiderers that work this way.


The exhibit showcases artists working in many mediums including the gorgeous embroideries of Takashi Iwasaki. You might recognize the works of Takashi as he has been exhibited and published a lot lately which is no surprise as his work is a colorful, fantastic world of organic shapes and constructions. I exhibited with him a few years ago myself.


His work is actually in concept very similar to a painter friend of mine. Recording his daily life with symbols and shapes. To us the result is an abstract work but to him a very personal journal.



His recent statement says:

Most of my recent works (after 2009) are either visual recording of my daily life or visualization of my imaginary worlds or landscapes that no one would see unless otherwise depicted; whereas my earlier works have been mostly focused on their formal qualities.

Those recent works may appear to be abstract on the surface, however, most shapes and colors have meanings and origins that are very significant to me in the way I feel them, therefore they are very representational and are reflection of my state of mind.

Things that I feel are never the same in the next moment because I keep changing. Capturing moments and sharing my visions with others have been my recent obsession and pleasure.

I am kicking myself that I missed the opportunity to see the work in person. But if you are in the city you have until the 23rd.

I also think the work of Nina Bovasso seems quite interesting...

and the work of Mairin Hartt quite beautiful.

Unfortunately the link to the press release is not working as I would love to have learned more about the curators vision for the show. But you can see all the work images and installation shots here.

stitches and thread in Chelsea...

this image found here.

You only have until Saturday to see the current exhibit at Lyons Wier which features the thread drawings of Laura Ortiz Vega and the embroideries of Cayce Zavaglia. I of course went to see Cayce's work as it is always worth the trip to Chelsea but I totally was happy to have seen the colorful work of Laura.

Cayce's work was intimately tucked into their small back gallery while Laura's work was in the front space. Laura's work pops off the walls with its color and attention to detail.



Her press release states:

“Cosmograffiti”, Laura Ortiz Vega’s first solo exhibition with Lyons Wier Gallery, fuses traditional Mexican artisanal techniques with contemporary graffiti imagery, creating bold, rich landscapes that entice the eye. Vega appropriates the threading techniques of the Huichol Indians, “painting” her surfaces with colorful threads glued with natural bees wax called cera de Campeche. Laura Ortiz Vega’s process begins with her photographic studies of different graffiti she encounters on her native city streets of Mexico City.


However, Vega does not simply present a reproduction of the original graffiti. Through her own aesthetic filter, she has developed a visual mechanism of inversion, whereby the environmental content of the original source material is recontextualized, giving the viewer a more intimate experience, transforming their encounter from an aggressive, bodily and masculine experience into a more delicate, manual and feminine one. Its immediacy has been suspended, its simplicity transformed into the elaborate, releasing the original message into a new, more obscure and abstract one.

Scale and technique also plays a fundamental role in Vega’s work, providing a discourse related with the marginal, with a culture that may not be considered mainstream or high art, but that possesses formal and conceptual values that are well defined and identifiable.


The work is very beautiful and pulls you in, much like Cayce's does, and invites you to stay there lost in the colors and technique. Then you pull away and experience the content. So worth the trip if you can make it.

Some more awesome stitching inspired by graffiti.