Basking in its status as one of our country’s original 13 states, South Carolina is celebrating from the mountains to the sea this year’s semiquincentennial. There are lectures, concerts, historic reenactments and art exhibits, all to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence.
For its part, the 701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia mounted an exhibition in keeping with a nationwide initiative titled “Handiwork 2026,” established to reinforce the importance of handmade objects in our country’s history. In the case of the show now on view until May 17, textiles are the focus.
American textiles have come a long way since the establishment of our democratic republic. In our country’s earliest days, weavers produced almost exclusively bed and table linens and clothing. Today, weaving is firmly established as a fiber art.
Six fiber artists are represented in this show that showcases contemporary, often experimental works that breathe new life into centuries-old techniques. A good example would be a grid panel that North Carolina artist Catherine Ellis has embellished with natural dyes including black walnut, cochineal, dock root, henna, eucalyptus, lichen, madder root and rhubarb root. Many of these sources of natural dyes would be familiar to America’s earliest weavers.
Yet time does not stand still, and artists in the United States over the last two-and-a-half centuries have been open to international influences, perhaps in implicit acknowledgment that our county is part of a community of nations. In assembling her piece, Ellis uses a Japanese process called “shibori” whereby she “squeezes, wrings and presses” her wool and cotton fabric. Her aim is to create designs where the dyes are prevented from reaching the bound areas.
What results, in this case, is a woven panel titled “Moroccan Inspiration” since it incorporates within its plethora of squares, designs that would appear to be mathematically calculated, often reminiscent of the geometric mosaic tiles for which the North African country is famous.
