Textiles Embroidered with Edgy Messages @ Museum of Wisconsin Art

Two Fiber Art Exhibitions in Review

Apr. 12, 2012

3:25 p.m.

The original concept to textile art imagines the quilt or table linens, women sewing squares of remnants together to keep their families warm or presenting a gift to a new bride. These time-honored embroidery techniques reflected an intricate art in the 17th and 18th century. However, times and women\'s roles have changed and this traditionally women\'s art has transformed into an innovative medium in and of itself. The Museum of Wisconsin Art addresses these individuals working in fiber art through two exhibitions: “Uncommon Threads: Contemporary Wisconsin Textiles” and “One From Wisconsin: Richard Daenhert.” Beading, coiling, crocheting and painting combine with embroidery to define the images in an exhibition that requires careful viewing, to appreciate all the nuances and skills technique in each artwork. Two artists use embroidery to “stitch” paintings on cotton or linen. Christopher Niver stitches black thread into fine, white cotton in homages to master artists. Demonstrated by his depiction of  a landscape in Stream of Puits-Noir at Ornans (after Courbet).<o:p /> Lee Ann Kleeman threads a needle to finely shade a photographic image similar to a graphite drawing. After studying photographs by Depression era artist Walker Evans, Kleeman incorporated his eye into her miniature streetscape of Wisconsin for a Depression era image of  State Street, Madison, 1931.<o:p /> Vintage leather gloves provide a canvas for Marna Goldstein Brauner, who paints realistic women\'s pinup faces on each pair to display a fascinating variety of emotions. A tiny leather book transfers these images to the pages in a timeless expression of femininity, from a bygone era or into the present, revisited through the contemporary television show Mad Men. <o:p /> Brauner also embellishes with thread in a series titled Fresh Fig Leaves using vintage aprons and kitchen towels, where several cloths are even child sized. The tea dyed garments with appliquéd fig leaves perhaps refer to the original Eden garden,  guilt and shame over the women\'s supposed place in the expulsion from the garden, which might allude to female sexuality seen through domesticity. <o:p /> Leslee Nelson reclaims vintage handkerchiefs, fabrics and napkins for her own adornment that reflect women\'s issues. Each framed object relates a memory from her past. In Job Choices, Nelson stitched three symbols on a delicate handkerchief that represent a nurse, secretary or school teacher. Occupations she was told she could aim for as an adult women. Another humorous fabric titled Cleopatra and the Virgin Mary portray stylized faces of these two women Nelson could remember as being famous in sixth grade, the only two women she could recollect being famous. <o:p /> The museum presents 15 Wisconsin artists working in fiber art alongside another man, Daenhart. Daenharts\'s 16 “stitched drawings” encompass two series: Beach Relics and Glove Relics. The machine stitched images reflect complicated, graduated and nuanced color palettes and details to depict old gloves and in one “painting" a seagull\'s tattered wing. Thread literally becomes paint in Daenhert\'s hands through the sewing machine.<o:p /> While mending a hem or sewing on a button might be incomprehensible to some viewers, this exquisite exhibition exemplifies how traditional art changes as quickly along with technology similar to other facets of life. Challenging any preconceived ideas to what fiber art represents and its metamorphosis into a fine art well into the future. <o:p /> The Museum of Wisconsin Art presents “Uncommon Threads: Contemporary Wisconsin Textiles" through July 13 and Richard Daenhert through May 13. For more information please call: 262.334.9638.<o:p /> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p>

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