An Exhibit of Work by the 238 Textile Collective
Q Arts Gallery
1229 Hancock Street, Quincy MA 02169
10/12/2023 - 11/12/2023
On-Going Conversations
An exhibit of works by the 238 Textile Collective
October 1, 2022 - October 31, 2022
Compère Collective (C² Exhibition Space)
351 Van Brunt St., Brooklyn NY 11231 (718) 834-1440
Artist: Leslie Alexander
Title: In Our Own Bubble
Materials: Wool and silk wet felted with hand embroidery
Size: 25” X 20”
Price: $750
Artist’s Statement: Over the past several years our conversations have been relegated to the bubbles in which we live: political, philosophical, and due to covid, our own personal bubbles that have had to sustain us. As we travel around in our own, we must start on-going conversations on how to reach out and reattach to others who have also been sheltered in their own beliefs. How can we join together to create a chain of peace and stability?
Artist: Leslie Alexander
Title: Jazz Suite #1
Size: 26” x 32”
Materials: Wool, silk, vintage fabrics, lace, and threads
Price: $500
Artist’s Statement: This piece, rooted in blues, is an exploration of rhythms and improvisations as one has been forced to change directions in the face of what we have been going through. Playful in spirit, but complex in composition, Jazz Suite #1 encourages the viewer to go with the flow and look for the bright spots in the darkest of skies.
Artist: Leslie Alexander
Title: Let’s Burst Bubbles
Materials: Wool and silk wet felted with hand embroidery
Size: 18” sphere
Price: $500
Artist’s Statement: Let's burst out of the bubbles we have created for ourselves and let the conversations flow.
Artist: Kimberly Bush
Title: Conversations with Tea
Size: 36”x36”
Materials: Wool felt, wool roving, tea bags, joomchi, cotton thread
Price: $800
Artist’s Statement: A cup of tea is often a welcome respite from the chaos and distractions of everyday life. Conversations with Tea celebrates the peace and mindfulness associated with stitching the lines and spaces while I ponder over in a simple cup of tea.
Artist: Kimberly Bush
Title: The Scars We Carry II
Size: 36”X 36”
Materials: Wool felt, wool roving, botanical printed silk, joomchi, cotton thread
Price: $800
Artist’s Statement: People carry scars, whether you can see them or not. I know as a maker and an art therapist that sometimes an art piece will began talking, and if I listen, it will tell me what it needs. The metaphor of mending, literally attaching pieces together with thread, seems to mirror and be an antidote for my work in the mental health field. Stitching and needle felting quiets my mind and provides me with more internal space. It allows me to listen more deeply. My fiber practice guides me in holding, processing, and mending grief and loss, both for myself and others. This piece is evidence.
Artist: Kimberly Bush
Title: Red Wind
Size: 36”X 36”
Materials: Wool felt, wool roving, tea bags, joomchi, cotton thread
Price: $800
Artist’s Statement: It began with wind. Circling around the center point and forming a path to follow. I try not to question the end point, just try to follow the process.
Artist: Kimberly Bush
Title: Leggs
Size: 42” X 10”
Materials: Nylon, natural wool, thread
Price: $500
Artist’s Statement: Felted wool, thought to be the oldest known textile, has been used by nomadic cultures for over 3500 years. Legends describe people adding wool to their sandals to prevent blisters while fleeing persecution. The friction created while walking, along with sweat, transforms wool into felt socks. Nylon, a thermoplastic man-made fiber, became ready-made, disposable stockings in America in 1939. By incorporating materials from disparate cultural traditions, the theme of sameness and otherness emerges to acknowledge human beings’ connection to our bodies.
Artist: Betsy Disharoon
Title: We Are Not Getting Anywhere
Size: 20” X 14”
Materials: Wool, mulberry paper, cotton, acrylic netting
Price: $275
Artist’s Statement: Conversations which are circular, or even spiraling out of control, capture us and lead nowhere but further apart. How isolating they are and often fragmented, not truly saying what is on our hearts!
Artist: Betsy Disharoon
Title: Connecting the Pieces
Size: 47” X 19”
Materials: Wood, silk, plastic beads, cotton thread
Price: $400
Artist’s Statement: As the past 2+ years has hampered our efforts to maintain personal connections our diligence has overcome many challenges to reestablish contact with one another. Our appreciation of the life giving interrelations which sustain us has grown and flourished into richer and stronger bonds.
Artist: D.J. Drumm
Title: Let It Be
Size: 13 ½” X 6 ½ “
Materials: Acrylic and metal paints on cotton
Price: $265
Artist’s Statement: What started out as a fun exercise in mark making became one of my favorite pieces. The intention was to paint using two colors, some blocks having more negative space than others, using “tools” of all kinds gathered from here there and everywhere. I was then going to cut up the cloth into squares and reconstruct the piece of fabric with hand stitching. When I was done, I loved it just as it was, and this piece spoke to me and said “let it be”.
Artist: D.J. Drumm
Title: Paradox
Size: 8 ¾” x 30”
Materials: Acrylic and metallic paint on cotton. Applique and thread
Price: $175
Artist’s Statement: The great paradox of the human spirit is its need to be solitary as well as to congregate and have ongoing conversations.
Artist: D.J. Drumm
Title: Nesting
Size: 11 1/2” x 17”
Materials: Merino wool roving, silk ribbon, silk fibers and bamboo fibers
Price: $250
Artist: Lyn Falcone
Title: Autopilot
Materials: Various breeds of wool, silk chiffon fabric, cotton fabric, wool thread, silk, cotton thread
Size: 29” x 12”
Price: $375
Artist’s Statement: How often in our lives do we move through our day on autopilot? By rote, we navigate our daily activities and let things flow in the same circular manner. Round and round, funneling downward, ending up in the exact same froth.
Artist: Lee Johnson
Title: Chatter: 52 Days of a 100 Day Project
Size: Approx. 7 feet x 4 feet
Materials: Hanji paper, thread, sticks
Price: $550
Artist’s Statement: This project hung in the corridor outside of my studio. I added to it every few days. On some days a window would be opened, the strings would sway and the chatter was evident although there was no noise.
Artist: Lee Johnson
Title: The Sound of Conversation
Size: 48” x 60”
Materials: Dupioni silk, synthetic indigo dyed
Price: $600
Artist’s Statement: I spent most of my 50-year architecture career in open drafting (now CADD) rooms. The conversations were quiet, loud, droning, happy, angry, tense, soft, and constant. I find total silence uncomfortable.
Artist: Cindy Ryan
Title: Just Hanging Out
Size: 7” X 19” X 3” sculpture
Materials: Felted wool, woven lemon grass and cotton thread
Price: $300
Artist’s Statement: In the post pandemic world, I find sustenance in authentic conversation and sisterhood. This vessel was crafted with immense gratitude for the women of The 238 Textile Collective – a group with whom I can hang out, relax, and renew.
Conversations
Live at McLean Textile Gallery (Galleries 2 and 3) May 9 - June 17, 2022
6819 Elm Street, McLean, VA 22101
Conversations happen all the time with other beings. However, the most intimate ones happen internally with ourselves. When we create, we engage in an internal conversation that becomes visible and connected to the cloth textile. Meditating on the meaning of attachment while actually weaving fibers, mending torn and frayed edges, and sewing pieces together continues to teach us about the interconnectedness of human beings and how we can love more deeply.
Stitching and dry felting processes use a needle to weave fibers together through repetitive and aggressive jabbing motions. Wet felting and the process of joomchi incorporates water and friction to create connection. These processes can become the antidotes to overwhelming emotions such as anger, despair, and sadness, by instilling feelings of hope and beauty.
The years of the pandemic have taught us that everything is attached and interconnected. As Rumi teaches, let us hold on to our thread.
See highlights from Conversations in this video from The McLean Textile Gallery
Scroll down to view selected works from each artist.
Pieces
Tuesday, November 16, 2021 9:15 AM
Tuesday, January 4, 2022 9:40 PM
238 Textile Collective https://www.238textilecollective.com/exhibitions-pieces (map)
The past 20 months of the pandemic have created numerous changes and challenges in our lives. Many aspects of our lives have been upended, not unlike the pieces of a jigsaw knocked off the table. Some lost, some damaged, and many unchanged but no longer fit. We are all striving to put the pieces of our lives back together.
238 Textile Collective is a group of artists who practice their art with fiber. The artwork in this exhibit is our “practice” in the process of putting the pieces back together.
This virtual exhibit is our exercise in becoming whole, filling our lives, and putting the pieces together.
“what we practice, we become.”
.. KristaTippett
Leslie Alexander
Jazz Suite #1
Size: 26” x 32”
Media/Materials: wool, silk, vintage fabrics, lace, threads
Description: wet felted, hand embroidered
This piece, rooted in blues, is an exploration of rhythms and improvisations as one has been forced to change directions in the face of what we have been going through. Playful in spirit, but complex in composition, Jazz Suite #1 encourages the viewer to go with the flow and look for the bright spots in the darkest of skies.
Eva Camacho Sanchez
Raise Your Cup of Tea
Size: 25”W x 48”H
Materials: Tea bags, cotton, ink, and stitch
Description:
Drinking tea has played a very important role in the lives of many women across the world throughout the ages. Women like Mary Tuke, one of the first tea merchants to build a chain of tea shops, Oura Kei, who was pivotal in creating the Japanese tea export market, Catherine Cranston, who built a renowned chain of tea rooms in Glasgow, Elizabeth Petrovna, Penelope Barker, Alva Belmont and others, used ‘tea gatherings’ to mobilize support for women’s rights. They obtained loans to start small enterprises, owned property and frequented establishments without the companionship of a man. The Woman Suffrage Movement also started with a tea party. On July 9th,1848, four women were invited to Elizabeth Cady Staton’s house for tea. What started as a simple tea gathering, grew into a transformational movement that would improve women’s lives forever. These women envisioned an equality that would break the discrimination against women, and they did it all with cups of tea in their hands. So, raise your cup of tea and salute those brave women!
“A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water” - Eleanor Roosevelt
D.J. Drumm
Lily Pads on the Pond
Size: 7”W x 7”L
Media/Materials: Lily pads printed on hanji paper. I put one set of lily pads on one side of the paper, a print was obtained on both sides of the paper using the Eco printing technique.
Betsy Disharoon
Connecting the Pieces
Size: 47”W x 19”H
Media/Materials: wool, silk, plastic beads, cotton thread
Description: Wet felted, hand stitched and beaded
Lyn Falcone
…this petty pace
Size: 16”W x 27”H
Materials: Merino wool, Bergschaf wool, silk fabric, silk fiber, wool locks, grapevine
Description: Nuno felting, wet felting, hand stitching
As individuals, we are surrounded by our own little universes which align, intersect and interconnect with the worlds of those around us. Try as we might to recognize and understand these relationships, there is always much that remains hidden under the surface. Like the ripples emanating from the stone tossed into the pond, we ignite, inspire, illuminate, defeat, destroy, obstruct, or otherwise alter all that we touch.
Cindy Ryan
Midnight Wedding of the Rust Faerie
Size: 22”H x 12”W
Materials: Rust printed silk remnants, merino wool, grommets, glass beads, waxed linen, cotton thread, Jatropha multifidi, and Muhlenbergia capillaris
Description: The rusty bits in my perpetual pot have faithfully whispered encouragement when I hit a creative wall. The simple process of folding and wrapping pieces of thrifted silk around crusty metal provides respite and a feeling of anticipation about what will emerge over time. While I wait for the rust to work her magic, I often find myself taking a previously unconsidered path with other materials. This piece was assembled with a heart full of thanks for space under the oaks, the perpetual pot, and what must surely be my Rust Faerie muse.
Kimberly Bush
The Scars We Carry
Size: 13”W x 15”H
Media/Materials: mulberry paper, rag paper with rust, linen, wool, cotton thread
Description: joomchi, machine and hand stitched, 2021
People carry scars, whether you can see them or not.
This was a piece that I was going to throw away because it did not come out the way that I had intended. I asked for feedback and was told to wait. I know as a maker and therapist that sometimes a piece will began talking, and if I listen, it will tell me what it needs. The metaphor of mending, literally attaching pieces together with thread, seems to mirror and be an antidote for my work in the mental health field. Stitching and needle felting quiets my mind and provides me with more internal space. It allows me to listen more deeply. As I found myself processing the experience of being in the epicenter of the Covid pandemic, my fiber practice guided me in holding, processing, and mending grief and loss, both for myself and others. This piece is the evidence.
Karen Smith McGarity
Pandora’s Box
Size: 8 1/2”W x 6”H x 4 1/2”D
Materials: Wool roving, mulberry paper, 'created' and commercial fabrics, found box, yarns, ribbons, beads, threads, thrums, button, nails
Media: Wet felting, joomchi, hand and machine stitching, beading
Artist Statement: As the 2020 pandemic stretched on, my brain sought “what will this mean” answers for the future. I knew things were forever changed and wondered how the “new normal” would affect my goals. I instinctively felt that was going to be my regret if something happened so time was slipping away on several dreams. How could I use the feelings that welled up as fuel to finally start staring down some of my old fears?
Pandora’s Box is a sculptural depiction of “facing fears”. The process contains opportunities as well as problems I found out when I mustered the courage. The worry of “what ifs” occupied so much of my prime mental real estate for decades. Too many filled me with doubt and gave me plenty of procrastination excuses. However, after working on a few easier problems, I discovered none of the dreaded scenarios ever happened. As I progressed down my fear list, the ground did not open and swallow me. In fact, the scariest part of the process was usually accepting and living with the joy.
Lee Johnson
Dropped Pieces
Size: 20”H x 16”W
Materials: Joomchi with Hanji paper, tissue paper and string mounted on decorative paper. Wire and paper drops.
Description: I learned the ancient Korean art of Joomchi in the midst of the pandemic and have remained fascinated by the process and the variety of techniques and effects the medium can produce. The wet felting process is very tactile starting with crisp paper turning to wet leather, drying to stiff sheets, and with rubbing, breaking down to a soft fabric. The evolution of the process has been reminiscent of the evolution of the pandemic, forever changing and not in full knowledge of what will happen.