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Fiber optic

Woven wonders at the WCC

by Leon Nigrosh

CONNECTING THREADS: CONTEMPORARY FIBER AND TEXTILE ARTS BY NEW ENGLAND ARTISTS At the Worcester Center for Crafts, 25 Sagamore Road, through January 3, 1998.

A profusion of bright colors and soft textures permeates the Worcester Center for Crafts' main gallery with a feeling of warmth -- the perfect show for this season of dull skies and cold weather. In an important effort to present a survey of current studio textile activity, Carlotta Miller, head of the WCC Fiber Program, has assembled the work of 28 fiber artists from all over New England, including works that feature traditional weaving techniques and materials to new design methods with space-age fibers.

Show designer David Brenly starts our journey through time and space with a nice touch by mounting a classically executed tapestry woven by Julia Mitchell. This finely executed work is strongly reminiscent of medieval tapestries that showed vast bodies of ocean surrounded by uncharted lands. In her contemporary interpretation, Mitchell orients us somewhat with lines (connecting threads) emanating from a compass and the four major land areas labeled in Middle English. But after this, we're on our own.

Stairways play a very important part in Heather Allen's quilts, both as decorative elements and as symbolic personal spaces. In 75 State, the staircase, railing, and doorway are central to the composition, bursting through the hand-pieced and stitched background. In her more complex composition, 32C Warwick, it takes a few moments to discern the Escher-like stairway as it meanders behind a brighter colored giraffe-spot pattern. Her attention to detail is a plus as we discover tiny glass seed beads that highlight subtly quilted flower petals.

For fun, funk, and function, Northampton artist Beth Beede tops the list in this exhibit. Her Celebration Shroud (the title alone is enough to twist your thinking) is a mix of wool, mohair, camel, llama, and other fibers, including slices of loofah, all felted into a floor-length cotton gown fit for a queen. Her Coat of Arms is exactly that -- a coat with forearms felted all over in colored fibers, with four actual sleeves. To take the concept to its height, the expansive collar is embellished with dozens of pink doll arms. Excellent craftsmanship enhances these social commentaries, and as a bonus each piece can be comfortably worn.

At the other end of the size scale, Helen Frost Way offers us some tiny Seeds and a little covered jar each meticulously made from knotted waxed linen. These minuscule gems are little bigger than an egg, yet through their symmetry and exactitude, they exude a quality of monumentality and rightness.

Arlington artist Erica Licea-Kane is taking traditional hand weaving in a completely different direction by combining woven wool strips with handmade paper and other fibers into large wall works which she then colors and stiffens with acrylic paints. Her Bulls-eye is a mandala-like form that relies heavily on texture and subtle coloration to draw the viewer in. Her Vanishing Shield #1 is similar in concept, but square in form with a cross emerging from its center. Because it is easier to think of these works as paintings rather than textiles, Licea-Kane has encountered difficulty in showing her work at craft outlets. It's the old art-versus-craft conflict, but this time you get to decide.

Carter Smith has no problem with the art/craft thing, he just creates magnificent silk kimonos and scarf coats that shimmer with iridescent shibori color patterns. Smith, among others, has revived this sophisticated 1400-year-old Japanese fabric-dying technique and applied this ancient method with current dye technology to produce stunning color combinations and pattern designs.

Ellen Dorn Levitt produces her geometrically patterned scarves with a relatively new technique called dévore, from the French word meaning "to devour." Levitt uses a special paste to apply her designs onto a fabric woven with two different fibers (in this case silk and rayon). The paste disassociates, or eats up, one set of fibers, leaving the other intact and forming a transparent decorative pattern throughout the fabric.

Just walk through this exhibit and look at all the ways that fibers, from hand-carded wool to monofilament, are being manipulated into so many different objects, and the health of contemporary fiber art becomes evident -- and this is the textile work of only one score and eight from New England.

The Worcester Center for Crafts gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call 753-8183.