Transformation

Transformation

Parker Arts, Culture & Events (PACE) Center

20000 Pikes Peak Avenue, Parker, CO 80138

June 1-July 29, 2022

Curated by Rose Frederick

Juried by Jennifer Lee Morrow

Admission: Free

Review by Laura I. Miller

It’s easy to take textiles for granted. We see them every day in our bedroom and kitchen, hanging in our closets and tucked away in drawers. It’s even easier to cast away from our memories discarded fabrics, whether stained or worn through, that end up in thrift-store bins or buried in landfills.

An installation view of the exhibition Transformation at the PACE Center in Parker, Colorado. Image by Laura I. Miller.

Transformation invites fiber artists to repurpose materials ranging from tea bags to tablecloths, reducing the artists’ carbon footprints while interrogating quilting as a medium. The works featured by these 24 artists address themes ranging from women’s rights and gun violence to conservation and memory, showcasing the medium’s versatility and bringing attention to the labor of domesticity that so often goes ignored.

An installation view of the works in the hallway for the exhibition Transformation at the PACE Center. Image by Laura I. Miller.

The exhibition is divided into two main areas. A private gallery located near the entrance to the Parker Arts Center (PACE) holds half of the works, many of them delicately composed and therefore best viewed in seclusion. Around the corner from the gallery, the remaining works hang in the hallway against a rusted metal backdrop. This setting benefits the larger, high contrast works that can stand up to the noise and traffic of PACE’s students and patrons.

In addition to their physical separation, thematic approaches distinguish the works. I found that each piece could fall into one of four categories: nostalgia, social justice, conservation, and conceptual—with the most successful pieces enveloping multiple themes.

Jean Herman, Conversation, mixed media, clothing, curtains, and stole on recycled upholstery. 44 x 28 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.

Works like Jean Herman’s Conversation and Joan Sawada’s Another Time Long Ago, for example, fall into the nostalgia category, evoking the sensation of looking at family photographs.

Joan Sawada, Another Time Long Ago, linen tablecloth, sweater, worn work pants, a white towel, five shirts, and marker, 26 x 30.5 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.

“The inspiration for the art was an old photograph of my Aunt Louise, taken in the 1920s in the Sierra Nevada mountains on a burro trip,” says Sawada in her artist’s statement.

Sawada and Herman’s subject matter, combined with the use of upcycled clothing and other fabrics, conflates the quilting and photography genres for a delightfully surreal effect that also places them in the conceptual category.

Susan Brooks, My Mother’s Memories—She Had None, vintage napkins, linens, handkerchief, lace doilies, and silk buttonholes, woven and hand stitched with cotton thread, 25 x 51 inches. Image by Laura I. Miller.

One of the most thought-provoking pieces in the exhibition successfully straddles several categories: conceptual, nostalgia, and social justice. Susan Brooks’ My Mother’s Memories—She Had None stitches together white- and beige-toned vintage napkins, linens, handkerchiefs, lace doilies, and silk buttonholes into two vertical panels that play with the concept of a quilt and elicit memories from earlier decades when floral laces and napkins were staples of every woman’s household.

A detail view of Susan Brooks’ My Mother’s Memories—She Had None. Image by Laura I. Miller.

The title, My Mother’s Memories—She Had None, adds another layer of meaning, suggesting that the titular mother’s memories were replaced by domesticity and household responsibilities, the lace and buttonholes representing sieves and gaps that allowed more substantive memories to fall through.

Michelle Brackett, The Solace of Trees, tea-dyed table runner, Golden paints applied with cedar branches, old lace and textiles, gauze, yarn, felted commercial fabric, machine-quilted and hand-stitched, 52 x 7 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.

Similarly, The Solace of Trees, recipient of the Juror’s Award, combines delicate fabrics such as lace, gauze, and yarn with a message of environmental conservation and appreciation. Artist Michelle Brackett layers natural fabrics, arranged into pine trees and greenery, to create the illusion of returning the materials to the natural world from which they came.

Regina Benson, The Burning, bras stitched onto felt and polyester, 24 x 18 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.

Lisa Longacher, Forge Piece, traditional quilting fabrics, gun case parts, pieces of guns, embroidery thread, machine-quilted and hand-stitched, 23 x 27 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.

Works that more overtly tackle social justice issues include The Burning and Forge Piece. With The Burning, artist Regina Benson weaves together burned bras—symbols of the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s—onto a tie-dyed cloth backing. Lisa Longacher’s Forge Piece repurposes a deconstructed gun barrel and case into images of an anvil and gun wrapped in flowering vines. Both of these works call attention to modern issues—women’s rights and gun control, respectively—by placing symbols of oppression in a new context.

Regina Benson, Emerging, laminated and patterned plastic grocery bags, doll parts, wooden candlesticks, and wool blanket as armature, stitched together by hand and machine, 10.5 x 13.5 inches at base, 24.5 inches tall. Image courtesy of the artist.

Two pieces that won me over for their innovative use of plastics are Emerging and Lunch on a Pool Table. One of two sculptural works in the show, Emerging marries synthetic and natural materials. Artist Regina Benson layers hundreds of manipulated plastic bags onto doll parts, wooden candlesticks, and a wool blanket, creating what appears to be a human bust with small hands emerging where the head should be. 

“With environmentally smart plastics replacing our resource-depleting single-use obsessions, microbes eating and recycling our wastes for biological modification, and accelerating AI integration, I think new organisms could emerge,” says Benson in her artist’s statement.

A detail view of Regina Benson’s Emerging. Image courtesy of the artist.

Emerging adds a sci-fi dimension to the exhibition, imagining the result of human detritus fusing with the environment to create a new life form.

LaVonne Dunetts, Lunch on a Pool Table, baize removed from a pool table, bag from 50 pounds of onions, an antique jacquard napkin, and yarn, 34 x 15 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.

LaVonne Dunetts’ Lunch on a Pool Table centers the red netting from a 50-pound bag of onions on a purple backdrop consisting of baize removed from a pool table. The simplicity of this piece, along with the bold color choices, underscores the beauty found in materials that are made to be discarded.

A detail view of LaVonne Dunetts’ Lunch on a Pool Table. Image by Laura I. Miller.

While it’s inspiring to see how materials can be recycled and made into new works of art, there’s a deeper meaning behind the novelty. At its best, Transformation reveals the hidden labor of textiles and shows how artists, and women artists in particular, stitch together meaning from the fabric of everyday life. These works not only provide the viewer with the comfort of traditional quilts and clothing, they also contribute important perspectives to essential conversations about memory, conservation, social justice, and our relationships to nature and each other.

Laura I. Miller is a Denver-based writer and editor. Her reviews and short stories appear widely. She received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona.