"Fiber art" at the Indianapolis Museum 1

We visited the Indianapolis Museum of Art a couple of weeks ago to see the Yayoi Kusama infinity room, which took a stopwatch-timed 45 seconds, and then went on to the contemporary art collection for a more leisurely visit.  When I go to museums I always look for how mainstream artists incorporate fiber into their work.  Sometimes there's even enough that I would call it "fiber art."  Here's some of what I found on this trip.

Orly Genger, Len

It's two big rectangular piles of "looped and knotted" nylon rope, with "acrylic latex," whatever that is, apparently coating the rope.  Sorry, my camera refused to focus on the shiny surface, so no detail shots.  The wall sign says the sculpture "evokes the intimate processes of knitting and crocheting, but expanded to an epic scale."

Of course that made me crabby, because why does looping and knotting "evoke" knitting and crocheting, they're disrespecting us again, anything with yarn-like stuff makes them think of grandma.  But then I thought, well what is knitting and crocheting if not looping?  So maybe I'm not crabby.  What do you think? 

Either way, I say this is fiber art.

Nick Cave, Soundsuit, details below

Cave has made hundreds of these works, sometimes with a mannequin inside for display like this one, sometimes wearable for performances.  They're called soundsuits because when worn, they rustle and clink and clank and that sort of thing.  The headdress of this suit is full of random found objects, but the body is mostly crocheted doilies, with knitting underneath and a nifty hooked codpiece.  My internet research seems to say that Cave doesn't do his own handwork, but uses found doilies and fabric (although obviously somebody has to put it all together; wonder who?).  Definitely fiber art.

Antoni Tàpies, Dìptic amb collage, details below

Here the fiber is a hunk of an old basket, partly unwoven and affixed to a support described as wood but looking to me like plaster or ceramic.  I like the simplicity of the composition and the contrast between the dark and light halves of the diptych; I like the finger-in-the-sand glyph.  But I say this is not "fiber art," this is "art with a little bit of fiber."

More in the next post....

Plague diary March 14

On Thursday I exchanged emails with an internet friend who said she was going to the big Dallas Quilt Show the next day.  I replied that I thought she was brave to go.  On Friday she wrote to say they had canceled the show!  A few people had gotten to attend the preview reception on Thursday night, and one of them got this photo of the best in show winner, by Karen Stone. 

So my question is: why did they wait till the city government banned all large gatherings?  Why not realize this was a bad idea four days earlier, before the show was hung, before the vendors set up, before the food service was stocked, before people got on airplanes to come?

In fairness, things are moving quickly, and the decision that seems no-brainer obvious today might have seemed wildly pessimistic the day before yesterday.  But I think pessimism needs to be our new default, at least until we learn more about how the disease operates and how well we can mobilize against it.  Last week I was the one to suggest, in three separate groups and organizations, that it's time to cancel our meetings, close our gallery, stop getting together.   

If I were 40 years younger and needed that paycheck, I would be thinking in a different vein, focusing on how to protect myself when I went out in public.  But since I and so many of my friends have the luxury of staying home, it seems that staying home is not only self-protection but public service.  And I'm telling everybody I know that they should be staying home too.  They say citizens have to step up and help during emergencies, and my role, apparently, is to be a canary in the coalmine. 

Listen up, people!  If you don't have to go out in public, don't!  Researchers have been modeling the potential progression of the disease in hard-hit Seattle.  They said with its current rate of spread, we can expect 400 deaths in the next four weeks.  But if the transmission rate could be reduced by 75 percent, mainly through social distancing, we would expect only 30 deaths. 

I don't usually watch TV news or C-Span but my husband does, and I have been listening in more frequently than usual when the talking heads are talking about the coronavirus.  It's clear that uncertainty is high in every aspect of this crisis.  How does the disease work?  When are people contagious?  How long does the virus stay active on a surface?  And of course, the big one, can I get tested?

In the absence of reliable information, you get complacency on the one hand, and panic on the other hand.  Neither one is helpful.  So I was happy to see that the New York Times, which has done excellent reporting on the crisis so far, has removed the paywall from its coronavirus coverage.  You can access it here, and the site is updated around the clock for the most recent news.

I have been worrying about my sister, currently enjoying a vacation at a nice resort in Mexico.  That is, when she isn't worrying.  We've exchanged several emails in which I urged her to come home early, and a few minutes ago I was greatly relieved to hear that she has rebooked and will be coming back tomorrow instead of on  April 1.   I will feel even better if I have made you and my other internet pals think twice about that book club meeting, that concert, that trip to the fabric store.  Work from your stash.  Stay home!!!

I'm waiting for another picture, same beer but in her own living room.

Plague diary March 12

I feel like I'm in a disaster movie.  Last week it was like the first 15 minutes, when all the characters are going about their business, acquainting us with their lives and families and problems (and the audience is wondering which one is going to die first, which one is going to survive till the end).  This week we're in the next 15 minutes, when the volcano is starting to emit puffs of steam, a red light blinks on the nuclear reactor control panel, somebody leaves a wrench inside the airplane fuel tank, the serial killer grabs a woman and stuffs her into the back of his van.

Next week will probably be when all hell breaks loose, the volcano erupts, the crew can't control the airplane, the first body is found dumped in an alley.  And things go downhill from there.

Not even two weeks ago tomorrow I was cheerfully looking forward to a week in California, thinking about what handwork I wanted to take along.  Two days later I was no longer cheerful, and told my husband that I thought we were taking a big risk with the trip; the next morning we canceled.  We would have been coming home through the San Jose airport on Tuesday -- the day before two TSA screeners were hospitalized with covid.  I also canceled my April trip to Texas to teach at a guild -- a trip that we started talking about almost a year ago.

This week I had a full schedule of monthly meetings and gatherings come due.  I went happily to the ones on Tuesday and Wednesday, and to a long-scheduled meeting with our financial advisor this morning.  I had been planning on one shift at the gallery and two more meetings, this coming Sunday and Monday, and then into social seclusion.  But this afternoon my son convinced me that the time to pull the plug is NOW, not Monday at midnight.

I went to the grocery a few days ago and bought a huge load of pasta, rice, tuna, canned foods, dried fruit, nuts, toilet paper, dishwasher detergent and a couple of pairs of rubber gloves.  Last week we bought a new freezer, which was delivered yesterday evening, and today I hit the grocery again for a cart full of meat and frozen vegetables.  Thankfully I don't have to go full survivalist, because my sons are eager to do shopping for us, but we can get along for a while on what's on hand.

I wore a pair of gloves to the grocery and felt quite proud of myself, able to touch the cart, the refrigerator cases, the produce without fear of acquiring virus.  I loaded my groceries in the car, got into the driver's seat, took off my gloves -- and thought, oh crap!  Suppose I got virus on my gloves -- with my gloves on I just touched the door handle and the steering wheel, which I am now touching again with my bare hands...  this could drive a person crazy.

I came home, unloaded the groceries and washed my hands really well.  Do I have to use hot water to be really safe?  How hot?   I also washed the red peppers.  Does virus live on red peppers?  What about when I take the frozen corn out to eat in the future?  Does virus live in the freezer?  This could definitely drive a person crazy.

Two weeks ago I wasn't much worried -- or at least I thought we had a while of normal life ahead, to get ready and even to enjoy a last little vacation before hunkering down.  Today I'm in lockdown.  The stage has been set, we've met the characters, we've seen how the disaster got started (was it negligence?  should they have listened to the wacky seismologist who said the mountain was behaving strangely?  what if the cop had come around the corner a minute earlier and seen the killer grab the woman?) and now this movie is getting to the nitty-gritty.

Stay healthy, friends!!

Last week on Art With a Needle

I began the week worrying about the coronavirus.  We were scheduled to get on an airplane Tuesday to go to Monterey for a jazz festival, and as recently as a few days earlier I had been looking forward to it, even as my sons tactfully suggested that maybe it wasn't a good idea to go.  It's still safe, I assured them, and we might as well get a week of fun and vacation before the virus started to shut down our social life.

But reading the Sunday morning paper about cases in California -- yes, the same county where we were planning to fly in and out of, and spend at least one night -- changed my mind.  I gingerly suggested to my husband (who was the one who REALLY wanted to hear the music) that maybe the risk was too great, and to my surprise, he didn't need much persuading.  We canceled our trip, and I immediately felt a lot better.

What surprised me was how quickly my perception of risk changed -- less than a week from what-me-worry to let's-stay-home.  I hope I'm overly pessimistic, and the epidemic will fizzle out.  But I fear we will have some difficult days ahead.

The silver lining to this cloud was that I was able to attend our twice-a-year retreat after all.  I did mostly hand stitching, sewing my machine-stitched pink pyramid houses together and making progress on my newest cross-stitch piece.  Look at that almost empty table!  I don't find clean work surfaces like that at home.

More on Vickie's quilts

Last week I wrote about Vickie Wheatley, whose quilts are on display at PYRO Gallery in Louisville  through March 21, and promised to show you some of the interesting ways she finished and mounted her small pieces. 

She made a lot of little four-block quilts with leftovers from her much larger "Anxieties" series, finishing to about 12 inches square.  Some she finished with dense black zigzag stitching, then mounted on a black canvas, with maybe a quarter-inch of canvas showing around the edge.  If the light isn't exactly right, you can barely tell where the quilt stops and the canvas starts.

Some she faced, then mounted on a pale wood panel.

Here she zigzagged the edges with a variegated thread, which gave the effect of a striped binding.  Again, mounted on a pale wood panel.

Vickie also made a bunch of quilts with a wonky circle design, like these:

Rather than quilting the leftover circle blocks, she used them as the base for intricate hand-stitching.  Some were mounted in fabric-backed frames with raw edges. 

Others had black binding, again in frames.

If you can't find a piece that fits your particular decorating vibe, you aren't really trying! 

Fashion for you

Whenever I see photos of the fashion shows I wonder if any of these clothes are wearable by actual people attending actual activities and events.  But in the newspaper, an outfit that seems potentially very useful.

You know those invitations where you aren't sure whether you should go casual or dress up?  Here's the perfect solution:

Outfit by Off White, photo from New York Times