Four Artists: Angels and Mentors

Interwoven into my life at the loom are the stories of four women: a weaver, a painter, an embroiderer, and a fiber artist. Their histories have guided and pulled me forward in my own growth as an artist. Yet it is to their art that I feel a heartfelt, visceral, and almost spiritual resonance. I would like to present to the TSA conference in 2020 my research into the lives of Sumiko Deguchi (1883-1952), Helen Frankenthaler (1928- 2011), Adya van Rees-Dutilh (1876- 1959), and Pat Hickman (b.1935). As an artist who has wound, tied, dyed, and woven silk into contemporary ikat work for over forty years, I have become fascinated by how the thread reveals a life and encodes memory. There are many questions I would con- sider as I research the lives and work of these four women: • How does connection of fingertips on thread inform and guide the artist? • How does touch inform the somatosensory cortex in the brain? • How are the artist’s spirit and heart strings revealed in a viewer’s kines- thetic response to the luster and tactile presence of fiber? • What draws us to look closely at the intelligence within a textile or a canvas? Including images of the development of my own work, I hope to illustrate how their art has been an inspiration, a consolation, and an integral part of the fabric of my life’s work. Shouldering a vital textile tradition within a historic and vibrant contemporary community of fiber artists has been the thread I follow with my own voice.