Tapestry Topics Online
A Quarterly Review of Tapestry Art Today
page 4
Winter 2004, Vol 30 No 4
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Letter to the Editor
The following letter from Joann Cromley was initially sent to Monique Lehman who suggested it be sent to her through the ATA newsletter, so that a discussion could take place.
Dear Monique,
I would like to commend you on an outstanding job as Exhibition Chair for the American Tapestry Biennial Five exhibit. I found the art work quite unique, expressive and beautiful. For a tapestry weaver, the body of work is inspiring.
My concern is the extremely negative and psy-chologically destructive comments in the catalog by Tomas Osinski, Juror. I found his remarks scathing, stinging, and hurtful and wonder why? Does such blatant and diminishing criticism have any positive value to the artists or the art? I found his remarks unnecessarily painful. It also sounds as if he dreaded the entire process, which makes me wonder why he consented to be a juror.
Your response to my concerns would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely and with respect,
Joanne Cromley, Afton, Michigan
Dear Joanne,
I had exactly the same feelings about Tomas Osinski's essay when I read it the first time, I even asked him to rewrite it; he refused and asked me to print without any corrections. When I read it again I started to pay attention to what he said and not how he expressed it. He made a few valuable points.
The juror wants to see original artwork, the repetition and imitation is boring.
Tapestry weaving takes a long time and the artist should spend more time thinking about what he will weave and not waste his time on trivial subjects.
Tapestry artists should be more controversial; they don't need to worry about everyone liking them.
Artists should create art and not decorate boring interiors.
By criticizing all the entries and purposely diminishing their value he elevated even more the one that he liked. Most Eastern European critics have a different style of writing than American writers. The writer is expected to be controversial and negative; he often makes fun of the artist. The critic sometimes is sarcastic but always thought provoking.
Osinski didn't care if we liked him and he achieved what he planned, he made us upset to the point that we had to notice his essay and remember what he said. To my surprise he said that he enjoyed being the judge for the Biennial.
Monique Lehman, ATB 5 Exhibition Chair
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above: works by Jon Eric Riis and Brita Been
below: works by Leva Krumina, Birgitta Hallberg, Deborah Corsini and Pacific Rim
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A second letter sent to Monique
Keeping in mind that for at least the last hundred years, few artists or critics agree on what is valid art or literature, I have a reaction to Tomas Osinski's statement about Biennial 5. One who agrees to be a juror of an exhibit should state his criteria clearly and completely. His statement, "I was searching for some message about 'Universal STUFF' and I merely found things that were trivial," leaves me wishing for HIS definitions of "trivia" and "Universal STUFF." He never gives us these, nor does he give examples of what he was looking for. He found one lonely example of the universal in all of the three hundred submissions. Dare we ask which one that was, so we can get a glimmering of what he approves? Could we be allowed to know which few examples "stick out" as excellent?
Does the photo of himself perhaps give us a clue about his attitude? Is he telling us his judgments are intentionally contradictory? Is he telling us that the trivial can reveal the universal only when it brings a new awareness or recognition greater than it actual-ly portrays? Is he teasing us?
I would love to know, in concise language, what this artist is trying to tell us.
Jeanne Walker