Fringe

Origin

Middle English: from Old French frenge, based on late Latin fimbria, earlier a plural noun meaning ‘fibers, shreds’.

Working with a new material, Supima Cotton. Thinking about textile history. Fringe was used to prevent a fiber sheet from unraveling in early history. Later on, fringe is ornamental, associated with high society. Beginning experiments. 

By hand. Taking raw cotton and making various lines. 

Size range 11" to 2".

Raw cotton submerged in hot water with turmeric. Sculpted while hot. 

Size range 11" to 2". 

Raw Supima Cotton

Artist Talk

Arrowmont Pentaculum Artist Residency, January 2020

Cut cotton duck fabric and test weave. 

Indigo dye strips plus many other fabric pieces.

Weave strips. 

Explore hanging possibilities. 

Exploring other ideas related to the apron as a symbol of work/labor. 

Sea Level Rise

Felt, indigo ink, thread, wood, paint. 

The Grass Is Blue, Anne Wright Wilson Gallery, Georgetown College, Kentucky

The Grass Is Blue highlights multiple Kentucky histories. The work is a response to stories evolving around the enslaved and native peoples, as well as from the specific geography and commerce surrounding them. These topics generate a discourse rooted in diversity and place. My intent is to raise awareness of past events, to reflect upon the span of humanity and culture within the region, and to generate current feelings of empathy and community. Consequently, I utilize various materials and processes to create an inclusive visual language that acknowledges the people, events, and land in which they have emerged. -November 2019

Find Your Purpose

Silk dyed with marigolds, fan, magnets.

Title from Frank X. Walker poem “Murphy’s Secret”.

46” Length x 13” Width x 7” Tall

 Kentucky History: Isaac Murphy wins the silk purse.

Corner Installation #2
Breathing Shared Dreams

Mirrors, wood, paint, text.

Words from bell hooks poem #37

Kentucky History: Slavery

Collaborative Kentucky Drawing Project

The project highlights contributions made by three women made to science within the state of Kentucky. I am collaborating with Kentucky artists to produce a drawing collection that represents specimens associated with Wharton, Price and Braun. The drawing collection will be on view November 2019 at the Anne Wright Wilson Gallery, Georgetown College, Kentucky.

Mary E. Wharton

Over 400 specimens for Wharton in the New York Botanical Garden database. 

Two links, each provides a different search format. 

http://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/vh/specimen-list/?ColParticipantLocal_tab=mary%20wharton&ImagesOnly=yes

http://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/vh/specimen-list/?OcrText=mary%20wharton

Images of specimens and illustrations from the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Link below to Plant Illustrations by Sarah Sadie Francis Price.

https://mobotgarden.photoshelter.com/galleries/C0000p4RJPe_kf2I/G0000C1Tk99ToqvM/Plant-Illustrations

Link below to Herbarium Specimens associated with Sarah Sadie Frances Price.

https://mobotgarden.photoshelter.com/galleries/C0000p4RJPe_kf2I/G0000jlsPFf7mmpU/Herbarium-Specimens

E. Lucy Braun

200 specimens for Braun can be found at the New York Botanical Gardens. 

Two links, each provides a different search format.

http://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/vh/specimen-list/?ColParticipantLocal_tab=emma%20braun&ImagesOnly=yes

http://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/vh/specimen-list/?OcrText=lucy%20braun

If interested in participating, please contact lmongiovi@flagler.edu

Participants from all over Kentucky produced drawings in response to the specimens 

of Wharton, Price and Braun. 

208 Drawings, Black and White Media on Paper

On exhibit at Georgetown College

Italian Velvet History: Textile Images
The most fanciful images of the weaver's art across the centuries: upon thrones, altars, in royal bed chambers, bourgeois drawing rooms and the ateliers of great couturiers; it is velvet which has marked entire eras. Guiseppe Verdi demanded only the finest velvets for the outfits for the characters in his operas, and the same was true for Rossini and Donzietti. From Caruso to Galeffi to Giuditta Pasta, one and all lavished maniacal attention to the velvety spectacle of the costumes of their operas. And what shall we say then for the long list designers, from Courreges, Cardin, Rabanne, Marucelli, and De Barentzen?

Velvet, however, has been first and foremost an economic phenomenon, which has generated enormous wealth, enough to pay armies, create banks, and radically shift the array of international economies. A powerful lever in the great trade of the Renaissance, velvet made the fortunes of the bankers and merchants of city-states such as Lucca, Florence, and the maritime republics of Genoa and Venice. For centuries, these cities dominated the textile markets of the entire world, with their velvets influencing the prices of raw materials, commercial treaties, fashions, technology, and new discoveries.

The earliest traces of velvet were lost somewhere on the legendary Silk Road, the great transcontinental caravan route that connected Lo-Yang with the Ch'ang-an through the Taklimakan, the desert without return, all the way to the port cities of the eastern Mediterranean. As to the origins of velvet, scholars from all over the world have discussed and debated for many years. It is now a general belief this fabric, originally made of silk, arrived in Italy for the first time from the Far East, transported by Arab merchants, and was then spread throughout Europe, in turn, by the merchants from Lucca, Venice, Florence, and Genoa.

In Italy, beginning in the twelfth century and continuing through the entire eighteenth century, the largest industry for the production of velvets in the western world was set up. For centuries in Lucca, Siena, Venice, Florence and Genoa supplied the rest of Europe with these valued fabrics, to be used in clothing, wall coverings, upholstery, the trapping of horses, furniture of all sorts, and the interiors of carriages and litters.

Many historians claim that the earliest velvets were woven in Palermo, in imitation of the velvets in the east. The hypothesis that this precious cloth was first woven in Sicily and later spread to the rest of Italy was first put forth by the French Scholar A. Latour. Many other scholars tend to favor the Venetian route, since there is documentation from as early as the ninth to eleventh centuries of intense trade between Venice and the East. However, Arabic is the only language that makes use of the name of a city Kathifet in mentioning velvet. This city may well be the place where this type of cloth was produced for the first time. But on the other hand, in Italy, the fabric takes the name from the characteristic appearance - in Italian, "vello" means fleece, and "velluto", or velvet, means fleecy.

source http://www.textileasart.com/weaving.htm