Photo credit: Dave Zylstra
Pfister 2019 Artist-in-Residence Rosy Petri
Walk north from Wisconsin Avenue down the Pfister Hotel’s main hallway—past lobby, desk, concierge and café—look left, and you’re likely to see the hotel’s new artist-in-residence, Rosy Petri, at work in her modest studio. Stop in, chat, ask questions or simply peruse her unique “fabric portraits,” some still in progress, on tables and walls. “I try to keep regular hours,” she says, “usually Monday through Friday from around 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.” She started her prestigious year-long residency in April.
How did you win this great gig?
Quite by accident, I can assure you. The last two years, I’ve been focusing on creativity—cooking and working on art. After I got married, I decided to take that more seriously. So, I participated in a Milwaukee Artist Resource Network program as a mentee, and Della Wells was my mentor. I’d been kind of following her around for years, and she suggested I apply for this as practice for applying to things!
How do you describe your art?
I call them fabric portraits, but they are raw edge appliqué. It’s a quilting technique. I’m a quilter, too, so this is kind of the way I figured out how to use up all the fabrics I generated from quilting and dressmaking. I didn’t want to throw it away.
And your subjects?
I focus a lot on culture, mostly African American culture, touching on culture icons, spirituality and the fabrics themselves, which are African American print fabrics that have their own stories. Depending where you are in the continent of Africa, there are different signature types of fabric making, so I want to use these textures to remind people of the history and story of what we have here. A lot of us don’t have a direct connection to where in Africa we’re from or even where in the South [of the U.S.] we’re from. I think these fabrics, and especially the Kente pattern fabrics, really create a tie of history for us.
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That must involve research?
Learning. Not necessarily from research. I worked as a seamstress in an African fabric shop in Detroit owned by a Nigerian woman. I got to be surrounded by the fabric every day. It’s beautiful. I’d never seen anything like it. I originally went there to buy quilting fabric, and then I was like, no, you need to give me a job!
Who are the portraits of?
Some are of people I know and can appreciate and enjoy their humanness and personhood. I call that series “The People’s Church.” It kind of evolved from the idea of stained glass windows. The bigger series are all musicians. I started with six black women. I’m working on the men now. It’s kind of a celebration of black contributions to musical culture in America, covering the spectrum. It’s funk and soul and gospel, all of it, rock, jazz.
And these are baseball players?
This was actually a suggestion from someone who works at the hotel. She mentioned that baseball players stay here, and I love baseball! And I thought, what if I do the Negro League? This was research, and I found out there were three women who played in the Negro League because they weren’t allowed to play in the Women’s League. One of them scored a run off of Satchel Paige. That’s pretty cool.
How to you see the Milwaukee art scene?
We have an excellent art scene. I think we have incredible art here. In my proposal to the hotel, in addition to doing my own stuff, I’m going to be doing interviews and illustrations with other artists in the community. I’ll put together small podcasts and do a segment on each artist, because I do think we have phenomenal artists, great artists. They’ve been really wonderful helping me learn to do this.
The art scene is super-accessible here, there’s a lot of opportunity to learn and to just see beautiful things, and regular people make them. Regular people make beautiful things here all the time! As a city, we probably have a surplus of art, but that’s the kind of stuff that makes cities worth visiting. Artists are a huge asset. We work really hard, often for not much money, and it’s valuable labor that could bring some stability to the various communities that exist here.
