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Jean Pierre Larochette-Yael Lurie: Still too busy for dissent
…From my earliest memories, my feeling for the craft was so intense that I fell in love with its tool. . . So much of what is dear to me, embedded since the beginnings of memory, has found its form in this simple net. …Tapestry making is . . .a system of coordinates that aims for precision, always seeking to improve its accuracy. . . Most techniques in tapestry are designed to create visual illusions, and in the process of achieving curves out of stepping-stones, color gradations out of a limited palette, sophistication seems unavoidable. . . The better you get at it now, the greater danger of losing that beginner’s casual freshness of then. An element of surprise, for us, must coexist as an antidote to meticulous planning.
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Left: Jean Pierre Larochette & Yael Lurie, "Quietude," 48" x 20", 2003
below: Alex Friedman, Flow, 32" x 27" x 3.5", 2005
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Marika Szaraz
The woven surface and the structure of tapestry involve such strength that my interest focuses on that quality. …For "Positive-Negative," I wanted to create something where the border between tapestry and picture is faint. . . to combine rigidity with softness, . . . but where softness is holding the rigid together, creating a new kind of harmony. Thus the metall lines represent an organic part of the composition . . . creat[ing] a visual effect since they do not connect or ‘hold’ it together. . . Its dynamics can change according to how I fit the two modules together and how I place the metal lines. Its title "Positive-Negative" suggests that one part turns outwards and the other inwards in two identical black forms, thus showing antagonism and dependency at the same time. The two components complement each other, just as the different, contrasting materials (firm and soft) become dependent in order to create unity.
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below: Marika Szaraz, "Négativ-positiv," 180cm x180cm (71" x 71"), 2003; haute lisse-szama, viscose, cotton, métal.
Two modules with two metal rails. Configuration of units can vary for specific display site.
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Left: Marika Szaraz, "Espace occupée," 90cm x 270cm (35" x 106") & 60cm x 450 cm, (24" x 181"),1984; haute lisse, wool, cotton. Two parts, site specific arrangement
below: Marika Szaraz, "Perspectives," 125 cm x 200cm (49" x 79"),
1983; haute lisse, wool, cotton.
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Looking Back at "Tapestry: The Narrative Voice"
By Christine Laffer
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[The 1989 exhibit, "Tapestry: The Narrative Voice" and the] catalog that accompanied it with four essays by savants in the field and the five participating artists' statements. . . carried an air of cutting edge brashness since it was the strongest attempt to mutually engage the art world and the tapestry world on terms favorable to tapestry. The show presented many questions that seemed to have confusing answers even with the explanatory essays.
Why would "narrative" have been thought of as cutting edge? . . . Modernism had failed and Postmodernism gripped the imagination of artists, writers and cultural critics beginning in the mid-1980s. By focusing on narrative in the exhibit's title and the first essay, the artists imply their works continued the legacy of a long narrative tradition. . . .[In] Sharon Marcus 's "Legend Borne on the Winds of Escazu" textures of blended yarns, feathered edges and uneven forms gave a blurred vision of the place . . . the story lay hidden among the threads and gave only vague traces by which to find it. Ruth Scheuer's statement more clearly evoked the contradictions of living an urban life in a postindustrial society. She wrote: ". . . This is the essence of contemporary times. Many things are happening at once. Everything is instantaneous, like the flash of a camera."
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below: Sharon Marcus, "Legend Borne on the Winds of Escazu," 47" x 76", 1988
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below: Ruth Scheuer, "Veils," 60" x 108", 1988.
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Looking Back at "Tapestry: The Narrative Voice"
By Christine Laffer continued
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"Nomad Trying to Capture Happiness" by Ann Newdigate Mills stepped straight out from textile traditions into the present. There in the threads of a magic carpet ride, a story leapt from the past into the jet stream with a sense of natural ease. If any piece could convey the sense that narrative had a voice that could speak comfortably in the information age, this was the one Marcel Marois nearly matched Mills' skill in collapsing the long skein of history into the present. With "Passage Interrompu" he brought the ceremony of cave paintings into the age of oil crises and environmental impact studies. . . Short and concise, the story flattened time with a shocking abruptness.
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below: Ann Newdigate Mills, "Nomad Trying To Capture Happiness," 49" x 88", 1985.
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below: below: Marcel Marois, "Passage Interrompu," 106" x 128", 1986/87.
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Volunteers Make it Happen: Mary Zicafoose
By Mary Lane
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Mary’s current work employs strongly colored, ikat-dyed weft. The characteristically jagged edges of ikat animate what might otherwise be static blocks of color. Controlling the alignment of the edges with ikat is a meticulous process that Mary refers to as “adrenalized. . . Bold colors, when used in conjunction with an abstract language of form, take on a certain conceptual content that the more descriptive use of color applied to representational imagery rarely embodies. That the strong colors are used in broad fields further increases the suggestive power of the work. However, as with all art that operates within a very limited formal range of expression, each decision regarding hue, value, intensity and size becomes critical to the success of the work.
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below: Mary Zicafoose, "Found Objects: Suns with Clouds," 64" x 29", 2006, weft-face Ikat tapestry
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below: Mary Zicafoose, "Found Objects: Xs on Blue," 64" x 29", 2006, weft-face Ikat tapestry.
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