#56. 'Election-20, Red/Blue' 50 x 55.5 African, Hawaiian, Japanese fabric, and a contemporary fabric that reminds me of Russian Deconstructivism. 900.00

 

This piece was in an online show 'Uncommon Threads', SCORE/Santa Fe. 2023 

                              

55. 'Juneteenth-20 / Heroics' 2020.9 51"x41" African wax print, Kente design, and Civil War pictures on cloth. Gifted and found materials. 900.

This is in the 'Fiber Arts Now' spring edition, as part of the 'Excellence in Fibers VII'. It will be on display at the Schweinfurth Art Center, Auburn, NY. 

May 28 - Aug 14, 2022.

Some questions I answered about this piece is below.

 

        

What do you want the audience to feel when they see your work? 

I want the viewer to feel joy.

What is the overall goal of this piece? 

To remind us that the Civil War resulted in a people freed from bondage and that is what we celebrate on Juneteenth. That history includes all people in a conflict, not just the leaders.

What is the most important thing to you about this artwork?

That I get to express what I feel and share it.

Why did you choose to highlight this political undertone in this piece? 

I’m not a very political person. But I do listen and am a part of my society.  When I learned about Juneteenth in 2020, so many years after the fact, I took note.

A Missouri acquaintance knew of an artist getting rid of fabric and got me a whole bunch of scraps. Among them were a few small pieces depicting scenes of Confederate and Union soldiers not fighting but making peace. I thought of how Missouri was a state that had men fighting on both sides of the war. 

I also have beautiful African fabrics. I framed the heroic figures coming together in peace with the celebratory colors of African cloths on the front side. On the back you see fabric printed with red, white and blue bunting against a night sky of small fireworks, this is interwoven with the African cloth from the front. To me, I feel the euphoria of 4th of July festivities combined with Juneteenth.

Is this a theme of more of your work?

Not exactly. All of my two sided woven quilts deal with commenting, complimenting, and/or contrasting one side with the other. I wouldn’t have searched for fabric of Confederate and Union soldiers. Chance plays a large part of what I bring together.

Is there anything else I didn't ask about that you'd like to add?

Some of the best views of my pieces are seen when they are tossed into a 3D heap. Of course the “story" is not read easily as it becomes a jumble of colored and patterned squares. Sometimes I can be very literal and sometimes very abstract.

54. 'Spring 2020 / Confined Chaos' 2020.6 68" x 68" if arranged on a pedestal or 73" x 68" stretched flat. Contemporary cloths, cottons and synthetics. 900.

 

Spring 2020 was unlike any other spring. The idea of an idyllic planned flower beds surrounded by a white picket fence turns into a mayhem of flowers confined by black bars. "A riot of colors". I stripped several floral patterns and mixed them up but also had them "randomly" clump together. Aerial drone videos on the 6:00 News reminded me of how small and lost and random we can be. One side is without color, quite dead. And the hashtag is just another unfathomable new change.

 

https://womanmade.org/home-a-virtual-exhibition/

Art-In-Place 5/20 - 6/20. Holiday and weather permitting.

'Mardi Gras Beads Day/Night with floaters'.  61" x 69".  Covid-19 half price sale.  $400.00

20% goes to Arts for Illinois Relief Fund.
https://terrainexhibitions.org/              https://www.cnlprojects.org/artinplace

Masks for Covid-19. Glad to be able to improvise and provide when needed. Update: passes Bill Nye's test. Gosh when I look back on this...we are so innocent.

a pandemic when no one knows who is infected; everyone should wear masks not to protect themselves but to protect others. If they did the same then everyone gets protected.

#53. 'Route 66 With Curry (stereotypes).' 2020.2 @ 53" x 75" stretched. Indonesian batik, American fabric. Indonesian character is probably from a Wayang Kulit Hindu epic like the Ramayana. Western prints are of stereotypical, "cowboys and indians". nfs

                                                 

I've noticed more Asian Indians owning and clerking at motels and gas stations wherever the interstate freeway routes go.  One gas station even offers lunch that include curry stews and stock Asian spices and mixes among their limited shelves. People are moving and settling in America all over, all the time. 

I imagine what it would be like as a SE Indian boy growing up here with a diet of Westerns that include old American legends of the "wild west" mixed with family legends from SE Asia.

Working on 'Route 66 with Curry (stereotypes)'. Started with reference to current truck-stops where you can fill your stomach with asian Indian food and your truck with diesel. But, with these prints its also about legends. Don't you think? (See...#53 'Indian and Cowboys'. Experiment of not building from the center. Very unwieldy.)

#52. 'Ming Ho / Munn Haw (Beatrice)'. 77" x 77". Chinese brush painting, Japanese folklore, and Hawaiian flora designs. I knew mom as 'Beatrice' all my life. She was in her 90's when I took her to get a state ID. Only then did I find she was born 'Munn Haw' (Cantonese) and changed her name to 'Ming Ho' (Mandarin) when she married. In elementary school she was told to go home and come back with an English name. (1920's Territory of Hawaii.) NFS

It was serendipity to return from seeing Li Huayi paintings at the Honolulu Art Museum and find among my hoard of fabrics a cloth decorated with prints of Chinese brush paintings. How it got to me in the mid-west I haven't a clue. It was printed in Honolulu too. 

'Munn Haw' (Cantonese), 'Ming Ho' (Mandarin) each translate to 'Day & Night' or 'Sun & Moon', poetically meaning 'Bright'. Add one more character for 'River' and it refers to the Milky Way. 

Ming Ho

Munn Haw

                           

I thought I may have trouble getting Dad's state ID, especially since he had dementia, but it was Mom who had a hard time. The name on her social security card didn’t match her old drivers license, or her birth certificate. The clerk sent us to get her marriage certificate from another office, perhaps that would help, but it only brought into play a third name! 

Mom was told to come back with an English name when she started elementary school. The teachers (haoles/caucasians) couldn't handle all these "foreign" names. And so all my life I knew her as 'Beatrice'. Her Cantonese name 'Munn Haw' is recorded on her birth certificate in 1918. She changed her name to ‘Ming Ho’ (Mandarin) when she got married but only on the wedding certificate. (Why? Because it's prettier!) The trick was to come up with an ID that would satisfy all these different documents.  

Everyone has layers of identity. Mom could dress up in a silky red cheong sam and be 'Ming Ho', while also 'Beatrice' in a floral Hawaiian print dress as a Kindergarten teacher. 'Ming Ho', 'Munn Haw', 'Beatrice'...she will always be Mom to me.