Masked Response

California Fibers last met in person in January, like many art groups, constrained by shelter-in-place and quarantine requirements. We met online in April, our normal meeting day and time, but in little boxes on the screen, some muted, some distracted, some challenged by technology, all glad to see and hear our group. We talked about art and our upcoming exhibits and whether they might even happen, until one member, Lydia Tjioe Hall, suggested we create an online exhibit in our isolation, a response to having to wear a mask, especially as fiber artists. So many other people were unearthing ancient sewing machines and using up all the elastic, or searching through their stash for appropriate materials. It seemed appropriate for each of us to reach deeply into our chosen medium and fashion a response to being masked and in quarantine.

And here they are…

Charlotte Bird, I’d Rather Be Somewhere Calm

Doshi, Ebb and Flow; Silk Organza, Arashi Shibori, Acid Dye

Timeless ebb and flow,

Endless waves of change,

Eternal depth of the sea.

Susan Henry

Polly Jacobs Giacchina, Wire, salvaged metal, and felt

Chari Myers, Covid-19 UV Blaster Periwinkle; wet felted, merino wool, viscose, silk gauze, lights

and Covid-19 UV Blaster Red; wet felted, merino wool, viscose, silk gauze, lights

Kathy Nida, COVID Mask; window screen, wool and cotton embroidery thread

Aneesa Shami, Credit: El Naddaha (deconstructed knit mask) by Aneesa Shami, for Planet City, Director Liam Young, Costume Design Ane Crabtree.

Cameron Taylor-Brown, Unraveled, an antisocial fabric mask; woven, layered and stitched, linen and rayon, 6” h x 7” w

This mask is inspired by a commentator who said that our chaotic national response to Covid is “unraveling our social fabric. “ One could also say that the fault lines of our culture are now unmasked for all to see – even as our citizenry is directed to “mask up.” Unraveled is cobbled together from pieces of handwoven textile, folded and stitched haphazardly, with threads in disarray. And it doesn’t fit well - not much protection would be gained from this mask.

Lydia Tjioe Hall, Face Mask No. 1

and Sneeze

Peggy Wiedemann

Members Present Continued

At our July meeting, we also had presentations from Kathy Nida, Michael F. Rohde, and Brecia Kralovic-Logan about their work.

Kathy Nida is a quilt artist, but she has been doing some embroidery work in the last few months. She recently started a piece for The Tiny Pricks Project, a play on words about what a needle does in fabric, but really a massive protest against the words of Donald Trump. The project started when its founder, Diana Weymar, decided to document a Trump tweet on a piece of her grandmother’s linen. The project grew to over 1000 submissions, with a goal of 2020 pieces by 2020. Nida is involved in a feminist art group who chose to be part of the project.

One of Nida’s friends found a doily of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and Nida proceeded to start stitching a quote from Trump about how we can leave if we don’t like it here.

Nida is freehand stitching the letters, noting that there was no easy way to mark them. Her plan is to fill the piece with his words, taken from a speech on July 17.

She’s using stem stitch and a Perle 8 cotton. She did layer the doily on a solid background both for stability and visibility of the image.

Nida also brought a drawing of one of the embroideries she has designed.

This is Desert Mother. Her patterns are available at Global Artisans.

Michael F. Rohde took members on a tour of his work and ideas as he started weaving until current day.

He spoke of hand-dying his own threads, working with controlled block shapes, and weaving inlays over a block. He has written articles about some of his techniques, collaborated with a quilt artist for alternating squares, and finally transitioned from thinking of his work as rugs to thinking of them as wall hangings. He has woven kimono shapes around the four seasons, house forms, designing in a row, some organic shapes, and even went 3-D into basket shapes at one time. His work references at times Turkish tiles, boro cloth, kente cloth, and tiles from Morocco. He worked on pixelating faces, including this recent piece Reality, which is part of the FiberArts IX exhibit at the Sebastopol Center of the Arts through September 8.

He is currently working on generating squares as language using all hand-dyed threads. He has completed 4 pieces, with 5 more in process. The first 4 were types of speech language; now he is focusing on what we’re seeing on the news. It takes 3-4 months for him to complete one of these large pieces. He chooses the squares in a random way, using cards that document asymmetric arrangements of colors and pixels. Is each square a letter? A word?

Brecia Kralovic-Logan has been managing a large piece called Women’s Woven Voices. Brecia explains the project on her website as a woven tapestry based on the stories of 1,000 women globally, which she hopes to have completed by 2020. The purpose of exhibiting the work will be to shine a light on the creative accomplishments of women while calling attention to the challenges women currently face worldwide. She brought the panels she has completed so far, which consist of 150 woven stories, including a few California Fibers’ members.

Another goal of the project is to foster a culture of self-knowledge and sharing that builds courage and fosters a sense of power in women everywhere to contribute to their communities in positive ways. Also she hopes to allow women to tell the story of their lives, as a catalyst for change, particularly by opening up discussions about issues of domestic violence and sexual abuse in a safe and supportive way. The red fringe is a documentation of the fact that 3 out of every 4 women is subjected to some form of sexual abuse in their lifetime. She also hopes to promote resilience, compassion, open communication, healing and peace in individuals and communities.

If you’re interested in contributing to the project, click on the link above for more information on how to get your weaving kit and start your personal story.

Members traded off holding panels and walking around to look at details of the project.

The finished panels have been displayed in a variety of locations and will continue to be exhibited as the project grows.

As you can see, California Fibers’ members are involved in a wide variety of projects. Stay tuned as we continue to delve into their works in progress.