Textiles

banner: a long strip of cloth bearing a slogan or design, hung in a public place or carried in a demonstration or procession

these didn’t start as banners
yet, as a way to mark color on cloth
indigo, madder & coreopsis

later, hung on a Shaker cupboard
finally sewn into a series of twelve,
a perfect circle/perfectly round.
shaker studies 01-12
.
.
pardon the pun, but coming full circle,
dyeing these cloths lead me down a
path exploring the Shaker’s use of color

four years later, study 06 hangs as a banner in Williamstown, MA
and on Saturday, I will present my paper ’Prismatic Utopia,’ a threefold
exploration of Shaker color—practical, temporal & spiritual
at the Deerfield Fall Forum

Eyes on Art Town, 37 artists’ banners found in downtown Williamstown
A Rich & Varied Palette: Coloring New England’s Past at Historic Deerfield, 13/14 September

[a perfect circle/perfectly round. shaker studies.06, 2021 Indigo on muslin, coreopsis and indigo on found textile, dyed cotton thread]

The title is from a quote by two Shaker Brethren, Calvin Green & Seth Y. Wells (1823)—“A circle may be called a perfect circle when it is perfectly round.”

Arrival Day, August 6, 1774

”Thus, after enduring the storms and dangers of the sea, in an old, leaky ship, which had been condemned as unfit for the voyage, and came very near foundering at sea, they all arrived safe in New York, on the sixth of August following.  This account was attested by the captain, and by many witnesses, both believers and unbelievers.”

This year marks the 250th anniversary of Arrival Day, when Shaker founder Mother Ann Lee and eight followers arrived in the harbor of New York.  Eventually, they would settle in Niskayuna (Albany, NY).

Mother Ann Lee described as ‘clothed with the sun.”



“Appendix: A Brief History of the Rise and Progress of The United Society,” written by Calvin Green and Benjamin S. Youngs, in the 1855 ‘The Testimony of Christ’s Second Appearing.’

“Painting is a form of poetry
Colors are words
Their reflections rhythms.
The completed painting,
a completed poem.”

Sonia Delaunay
[from Kunst Please podcast
9.20.2021]

Substitute ‘painting’ for?
stitching
natural dyeing
………..

Images from ‘Sonia Delaunay’ catalogue from Tate exhibition 2015
Postcard from ‘Sonia Delaunay: Living Art’ Bard Graduate Center 2024

old spools
new threads
from a spooler


spool:  a rod or cylinder, usually having a hole running from end to end, and a rim at either end, upon which thread, wire, etc. is wound

spooler: one who or that which winds thread or yarn on spools

from 1983 Webster’s New 20th C Dictionary

setting the stage
for stitching

stitching is thinking
time whilst researching

studio rainbws
in circles & squares

waxed linen thread spool
'Thought Forms' squared chart
stacks of Shaker boxes
Winsor & Newton 'Revival' dot card
& grids of buildings clad in 'beauteous colors'

on eclipse day - 
circular images -
maps & cities
rugs & blots
sun & buckets
utopias & moons


1/Polly Jane Reed, Spiritual Map. The Holy City.1843, Philadelphia Museum of Art
2/ Mary Gartside orange blot, An Essay on Light and Shade, 1805, Dr. Alexandra Loske
3/ Elder Joshua Bussel, Shaker Village, Canterbury NH, 1850 - detail, Winterthur Library
4/Edward Deming Andrews color slide, Winterthur Library
5/Knitted rug attributed to Sister Elvira Hulett, C. 1893, Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon

snow on fields

stitched onto cloth

and written into this poem

unfurled a field, a sea of snow grasping onto goldenrod
filling cups aplenty, double dotting punctuation
 
seeing scarlet swatches of bitten bittersweet berries 
 
grapevines curlicue up trees, squirrel nest spaces
unfurling, falling, flouncing onto the forest floor
 
oak, aspen, maple leaves carried into spaces
intervals interlaced into fullness
 
unentangle someone else’s scrawled 
no-sense sentences unto snow’s solaced silence

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

stitched work from the winter field series exhibited at 2017 Norte Maar in a solo show, bewildered


winterfield stalks and stems, silk/cotton thread on damask, 16 x 15 1/2”


winterfield dots and dashes, silk/cotton thread on damask, 16 x 15 1/2”

color & circles & spools

color encircling chores

spindles painted brilliant chrome yellow

spools of red and yellow

spools twined with indigo thread

Shaker Spool Holder & 24 Spindles

2 1/2″ H x 8 3/8″ W x 4″ D

Made by Brother James Johnson, Canterbury NH c. 1850

Object and images courtesy of JKRussell Antiques

seek glitter amidst it all

sending new year wishes 

[oranged orb, 2022, safflower on silk/cotton thread & textile, 11 x 11″]

deep darkness
sliver skyward
waxing or waning
a lone letter marks
the time difference

happy solstice 

.
studio slanted light
Shaker color research
Mary Gartside’s colour blots
circular stitching.

Mary Gartside (c. 1755-1819) published 3 books on color theory. Her 1808 An Essay on a New Theory of Colours is illustrated with these amazing ‘colour blots’ —abstracted views of ‘white, yellow, orange, green, blue, scarlet, violet and crimson.” Abstract before JMW Turner, before Kandinsky, before…………

Thanks to Alexandra Loske  for her research on Gartside. [quotes and info from Alexandra Loske, ‘Color: A Visual History from Newton to Modern Color Matching Guides’]