Connecting with Collections
By Susan Brown and Matilda McQuaid
In 2014, Cooper Hewitt was thrilled to host British textile artist Sue Lawty and Mexican sculptor Damián Ortega as part of the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (SARF) program. The fellowship, established in 2007, is intended to support the unique research approaches of visual artists by providing the opportunity to work with Smithsonian collections and scholars in a way that feeds their creative explorations.
SUE LAWTY
CLOTH AND ROCK
Sue Lawty’s passions encompass both ancient ethnographic textiles and geology. “Cloth and rock,” she writes, “although seemingly diametrically opposed, each carries a strong tactile element and can engender primal and deep visceral responses of connection, narrative, and memory.” As a serious trekker, she has a profound connection to the geology of place as an embodiment of time. She weaves with bast fibers — like raffia, hemp, nettle, and linen — and elemental, earthbound lead, and creates assemblages of carefully ordered stones.
Taking full advantage of the Smithsonian’s unique melding of science, history, and art, Lawty divided her fellowship between the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), Washington DC and Cooper Hewitt. “While at NMNH, I moved seamlessly between Anthropology and Mineral Sciences, studying material qualities, structure, and rhythms, whether it be in the twined grasses of Native American baskets or millions-of-years-old iron meteorites fallen to earth. Being introduced to the Widmanstätten patternsrevealed on the cut and etched faces of the latter will be a catalyst in all aspects of my work.”
Among Cooper Hewitt’s diverse textile holdings, Lawty selected and studied items as diverse as raffia embroideries of the Kuba peoples, Ugandan bark cloth, exquisitely fine pre-Columbian tapestry fragments, and high-tech, stainless-steel textiles developed by present-day Japanese artist Junichi Arai. “I remember how, as an Ainu robe was gently uncovered, it set fingers tingling and mind racing, the exquisite panels of woven elm bark revealing the hand of the maker; a maker from a wholly different place and time. The materiality of the fiber and each nuance of preparation, spinning, and construction could be studied in minute detail — nothing between you and the very particular qualities of it.”
Lawty has described her work as “small elements, finely controlled,” and her eye has been continually drawn to the minute variations intrinsic to natural materials that have been meticulously selected, processed, and constructed by hand. “My two months as a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow were so concentrated and powerful, it is taking a time to ‘come down.’ So now as I reflect on the experience of that complex and intense stimulation, I recognize that I am in an extended period of distillation: revisiting notes, sketches, and the thousands of photographs. These visual records are essential for documenting the research undertaken, but they belie the visceral frisson of direct, undiluted contact with the objects. It is this, which the fellowship offers, that is the exceptional opportunity for an artist. It was over in a flash. The next stage is longer.”
DAMIÁN ORTEGA
TEXTILES AS CULTURAL SYMBOLS
Damián Ortega’s fellowship started off with his “interest in textiles as cultural symbols, one’s own cultural skin. It is the dress, which has manifested sentiments and ideologies through time, and many of our experiences with cloth occur in a social context.” He was particularly focused on ideas of pattern and how information is translated visually on textiles, in sample books, and other objects. His work with textile communities in Mexico reflects these ideas and can be seen as experiments in measuring and understanding time in the making of textiles.
Ortega was particularly intrigued by a weaver’s 1848 master’s thesis book written in delicate longhand and containing 141 mises-en-carte (point paper), 104 fabric samples, in addition to numerous technical drawings, notes for loom arrangements, and fabric descriptions. Ortega appreciates how technical information translates into exquisite drawings with timeless abstract forms.
He also explored our significant collection of katagami — Japanese stencils used for dyeing fabric — which were especially popular during the Edo (1603–1867) and Meiji (1868–1912) periods. These stencils consist of numerous layers of Japanese mulberry paper joined together with fermented persimmon juice, which are then meticulously carved into patterns to be repeated on kimono fabrics. A net of fine silk threads (and sometimes human hair) helps to stabilize the stencils so that the paper will not warp or tear easily. This almost-invisible support particularly captivated Ortega — that something so fine, such as silk and hair, can also be the underlying strength for another material.
In studying the collection, Ortega wanted to “understand the things books and talks can’t tell [us].” Working directly with the objects, Ortega said, “I see the process of time, the evolution of the medium, and the infinite forms a textile can take. I see it as a subjective study in which I will make an interpretational play between textiles, music, and abstraction, and I will get to know and show ideas transmitted through textiles that are hidden behind the veil of the decorative and express them in other media.”
Susan Brown, Associate Curator of Textiles
Matilda McQuaid, Deputy Curatorial Director and Head of Textiles
This article first appeared in the Spring 2015 Design Journal, published by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
