Lusi Lukova on "RE: Assembly"

RE: Assembly, on view at Nationale through October 18, 2020

As part of Portland Textile Month, Nationale weaves together a powerful assemblage of local, national, and international multi-media artists. RE: Assembly, on view through October 18th, reads like a love letter to light and fiber works; it is “adapted from a former function… pliable in form…. towards a new idea.”  With thoughts of what it means to re-construct, re-contextualize, and re-assess objects and thoughts and materials, the works presented are unique to themselves and to the context of the gallery. Exhibiting together for the first time, these four artists present a strong front as makers currently working to push the boundaries of form and intuition. 

L: Lane Walkup, Boot and Heel, both 2020, steel, fabric, and spray paint, approx. 7 (h) x 9 x 3 inches

R: Michelle Yi Martin, Room Insider, 2020, cotton, wool, and acrylic light gels, 8.5 x 3 feet

To experience the full dreamy poetics of this show, arrive early in the morning. It’s October now so consider the way in which the sun rises later and lower than in the height of summer. Around 11am the dewy light of a new day is coming through at just the right angle to shine on and through Michelle Yi Martin’s Room Insider. The reflection cast on the back wall captures Martin’s intricate mosaic, catching the exact tints off of the bits of acrylic light gels she’s laced with cotton and wool. Connecting light to movement, Martin reiterates what it means for textiles to be fluid and shifting. 

Francesca Capone, Material Memory II, 2019, mixed media waste scrap fabrics and lavender, 44 x 38 inches

On the opposite wall, writer and weaver Francesca Capone trades in her traditional and laboriously hand-woven works to create her newest series, Material Memory I-IV, which push towards a zero-waste practice. These works are laden with memory and sentiment, considering how personal scrap can, in this context, create new narratives. These patchwork pieces reject precision and tradition to make room for new modes of interaction. A personal favorite aspect are the hefty lavender patches sewn into Material Memory II that can be touched, scratched and sniffed for an added element of surprise. 

Sofía Clausse, Paper Tapestry #2, 2020, acrylic on paper and mixed media, 58 x 38 inches

With similar values of repetition and gridded gesture to Capone and Martin, artist Sofia Clausse’s works on paper are however nothing but exact and carefully measured. When approaching Paper Tapestry #2 and Paper Dishcloth despite their opposing sizes, viewers are lost in the intricate linework and repetitive motions that Clausse has taken great care in implementing. They look appealingly tactile, yet also terrifyingly delicate. Similarly, Lane Walkup’s sculptures Heel, Boot, and Chair IV meld two disparate elements, steel and pantyhose, to re-imagine non-functional but beautiful everyday objects. Stretching the fabric over the metal skeletons, then spray painting the sheer fabric in joyful colors, these sculptures offer the ideal sculptural contrast to the three other artist’s similarly playful imaginings. 

A show not to be missed - come early, stay for a while. 

Lane Walkup, Chair IV, 2020, steel, fabric, and spray paint, 34.5 (h) x 15 x 13 inches

FRANCESCA CAPONE'S NIGHT FOG // CAPSULE REVIEW BY LUIZA LUKOVA

Francesca Capone
Night Fog (As the object grows, it curves around the forms of its surrounding shapes)
2018, Lostine long wool, poly netting line, and cotton on oak board, 24 x 22 inches

Nestled in the backroom between an Amy Bernstein painting and an Emily Counts sculpture is Francesca Capone’s Night Fog, part of her solo exhibition at Nationale entitled Think of Seashells.

As a weaver and a poet, Capone approaches her work from a visual as well as a literary mindset. The prose attributed to this particular work by the artist reads as follows: As the object grows, it curves around the forms of its surrounding shapes, and it feels as if this is precisely how Night Fog operates in the context of the show as a whole. Although it may be the final work a visitor may see tucked away as it is, its bold resonance does indeed curve to the viewing experience and serve to form a lasting impression. As a gallery-goer moves through the space, they are gathering growing memories of the body of work in total. Culminating with Night Fog, this particular piece stands somewhat solitary, both due to its location but also to its composition. Mounted on oak board, this is only one of two weavings that is presented in this manner. Yet, this doesn’t detract from its overall relation to the remaining pieces -- the oak nicely completes oceanic visions of seashells and driftwood that Capone brings into the space. The poly netting line similarly compliments other found materials such as the flotsam rope, plastic bags, and beach refuse that are embedded into the fiber of the hangings.

The dark colors of this particular weaving are slightly more drastic than the inviting pastels of the other works, yet they correspond nicely with its placement. If Night Fog were the last work to be seen, it would leave viewers with a cool imagery of things closing, things coming to a rest. Invoking a kind of serenity that can only be found with the setting of the sun on a calm evening, Night Fog creates a comfortable sensory shroud for viewers to come in contact with. The day has come and gone and grown into night, which silently and cooly forms to this nightly ritual. Take a deep breath, let the fog ebb over you, and think of seashells.

NATIONALE ON SIGHT UNSEEN

Amy Bernstein's January 2017 exhibition featured in this Sight Unseen article about Nationale

Our exhibitions with Amy Bernstein, Francesca Capone, and Emily Counts were featured this week on Sight Unseen. Read more HERE.

TEXT MEANS TISSUE // PUBLICATION RELEASE & READING

With more than 30 contributing artists, "Text means Tissue" is the accompanying publication to Francesca Capone's solo exhibition, currently on view at Nationale. Please join us at Nationale this Sunday, February 26 (3–5p.m.) for the release & reading. Come help us celebrate this extraordinary project and see the show one more time!

Readings by: Francesca Capone, Patricia No, Anahita Jamali Rad, Alayna Rasile Digrindakis, Catie Hannigan, and Molly Schaeffer.

Thank you to all the contributors: Alexandra Barlow, Anna-Sophie Berger, Jen Bervin, Amaranth Borsuk, Tess Brown-Lavoie, Charity Coleman, Corina Copp, Elizabeth Crawford, Alayna Rasile Digrindakis, Ricki Dwyer, Catie Hannigan, Marwa Helal, Emily Hunt, Lucy Ives, Rin Johnson, Mariette Lamson, Sophia Le Fraga, Monica McClure, Helen Mirra, Katy Mongeau, Kristen Mueller, Vi Khi Nao, Patricia No, Antonia Pinter, Anahita Jamali Rad, Emmalea Russo, Molly Schaeffer, Martha Tuttle, Rachel Valinsky, Cecilia Vicuña, Rosmarie Waldrop, Tali Weinberg, and Laura A. Warman.

INTERVIEW: FRANCESCA CAPONE

Artist, writer, and textile designer, Francesca Capone shares her thoughts on her solo show at Nationale, Text means Tissue.

Gabi Lewton-Leopold: This new body of work (exhibition and book) Text means Tissue, your 2015 project Writing in Threads, and 2012 publication Weaving Language all explore the relationship between weaving/textiles and language. When did this conversation between two seemingly disparate forms begin for you?

Francesca Capone: I started experimenting with weaving and writing during my time on the Jacquard loom at RISD. I began exploring how the repeat function of the loom could affect the metrics of the poems I was writing, and my framework for working in this way began. In 2009, I started interning and studio assisting for Jen Bervin, who has worked with text and textiles for many years, and whose thinking deeply influenced me. The more I reflect upon this question though, the more I start to convince myself that it's actually ingrained in me, as well. In the house I grew up in, my great-grandmother's ruby pink embroidered Italian alphabet sampler takes a prominent space in the kitchen. My mother makes fine leather gloves for a living—gloves, this particular garment that clothe the hands, which are so deeply emotive of language. I've found that expression through textile is actually a part of my family history, though I came to it on my own.

Francesca Capone, unsaid, unsung, unstrung (THKC), 2016, cotton and reflective thread on wood, 24 x 36"

GLL: The two most recent projects, Writing in Threads and Text means Tissue involved many collaborators—for the former, writers responded to your work and with this current series, writers responded to the question you posed about the connection between textile, language, the body, and femininity. I imagine that weaving in the studio is a solitary exercise and that making a publication with many contributors is a welcome counter. Can you talk about why collaboration is important to you?

FC: That's very true. I don't want to be a lone weaver speaking only to herself. In my experience, the best art happens in the push-pull of dialogue. I want to know what other people think, how they feel, I want to feel challenged, comforted, and inspired. I want to make work that is generous, and share the opportunities I have to create platforms for the work of others, not just my own. Collaboration always makes things more interesting, and the more I involve my community, the better the work is. I feel so fortunate to know so many talented artists and writers, and being in conversation with them drives the work I do on my loom.

Cover of Francesca's book Text means Tissue, which includes over 30 contributing writers

GLL: Looking back at your weavings from Writing in Threads (shown at 99c Plus Gallery in NYC), it seems that you've moved towards a more focused, pared down direction in both form and color. In Text means Tissue, you take the form of the written page as a starting point to develop your imagery. How do you see the weavings from these two series as connecting and diverging from one another?

FC: I made two weavings inspired by the aesthetics of the written page in 2012 while I was at the Haystack residency, and then put those ideas aside until most recently. These two weavings were a jumping off point for my formal choices in Text means Tissue. In 2014, while I was working on Writing in Threads, I focused on generating a wide variety of woven forms, fibers and colors, since those weavings would then be "translated" by different writers. I tried to create aesthetic diversity for the written outcomes. So the work didn't really evolve in the way that the Text means Tissue work did, because I was always trying to make something completely different every time. With Text means Tissue, the intent was to create weavings with a similar process to how I might sit down to write something. I wanted to create the experience of being in front of an empty page, with just my mind, and whatever was passing through it. It's quite a meditative task. I'd start weaving a blank substrate (usually in a white, black, or ivory yarn—neutral or "blank" colors), and wait to see what passed through my mind, and then record it in the weaving. One formal objective I kept in mind while weaving was empathy, creating spaces for the eyes and mind to rest. The back and forth of the lines that appear in this work is inspired by boustrophedon, which is the form that western writing took before there were spaces and lines as we now know them—this occurred in Ancient Greek, among some other languages. Boustrophedon means "as the ox turns," and it is a natural conceptual and formal fit for the movement of a woven line.

Francesca Capone, There's a knot where I was picked pure (KM), 2017, cotton, metallic thread, reflective thread, and polyester rope on wood, 36 x 24"

GLL: I love the material choices in these works. You go from super natural fiber, non-dyed cotton to very "futuristic" appearing materials—reflective thread, metallic cord, and Mylar. How did you come to combine these materials in your work?

FC: Material choices are a kind of vocabulary. Weaving can have a misconception of being an antiquated craft, but it's really just like any other medium—there's always new ways to reinvent it, and make it feel relevant for today. Through my commercial work in the textile industry, I'm exposed to the newest innovations in fibers as part of my day to day. Weaving with the materials that have come on the market more recently makes me feel connected to this moment in time. I especially love mixing old and new, and finding ways to integrate the futuristic stuff with other fibers that are tried and true, like wool and cotton. Our culture is all about new new new, but really it's impossible for all objects to be new—the new objects just layer onto the old, and I find this strange and fascinating.

Francesca Capone, I'm trying to tell you something about how rearranging words rearranges the universe (MH), 2016, cotton, reflective thread, and Mylar on wood, 24 x 18"

GLL: You have a chair in the exhibition that is a collaboration between you and furniture designer, LikeMindedObjects. For me, this piece is a reminder that textiles are often functional. Do you often make functional weavings? How do you think textiles change when given these different contexts and purposes?

FC: Though I have designed functional textiles, the chair is really the first that I've handwoven. There's something really special about it I think—and it was palpable through the whole process. My interest in making the chair was purely conceptual. I wanted to create a situation where the idea of a textile supporting a body was conveyed quite literally, since a big part of the show was exploring ways that textiles have supported the lives of women. I felt really connected to women's history as I was weaving it. I was reminded of women in antiquity, and I was humbled by the consideration that before the industrial revolution, there was a cotton industry of women in America who hand wove fabric for sheets, clothing, dresses, pants—everything. I wove fabric on an enormous AVL loom during a residency at A-Z West in Andrea Zittel's weaving studio, accompanied by two other weavers, Ricki Dwyer and Elena Yu. It took me three full workdays of non-stop weaving to make the fabric for the chair. I used a flyshuttle to efficiently weave 60 inches from selvedge to selvedge, a swinging the shuttle for every pick. Nowadays, nearly all fabrics are made by mechanical looms. It's easy to disregard labor when something is machine-made, making textile objects feel disposable, not at all precious. In contrast, it feels really special to sit in the chair, since it was woven with the same amount of care, time, and thoughtfulness as the weavings on the wall. I really hope that people feel connected to Elsie (LikeMindedObjects) and I when they sit on the chair, and I hope they feel supported. 

Francesca Capone + LikeMindedObjects, I don't know how people have enough time, I feel like I am falling through mine (ML), 2016, cotton, glow in the dark cord, reflective thread, and metallic cord on bent steel, 41 x 41 x 32"

GLL: The notion of design and functional objects also reminds me of your day job as a textile designer at a large sportswear company. Can you talk about how these worlds collide in your daily life and studio practice?  

FC: My studio practice and my commercial work are pretty separate, most of the time. As I mentioned before however, my awareness of contemporary material culture is heightened because of my commercial work, and this undoubtedly influences my palette of yarn choices. My studio practice is driven by my personal experience, my relationships with other poets and artists, and my conceptual interests in language and textile. In contrast, my commercial work really has nothing to do with me as an individual, aside from harnessing my ability to research, my taste in textile, and my technical knowledge—it's more about the consumer that I am designing for. It's almost like using two completely separate parts of my brain, and as time passes, it's become much easier for me to switch gears. I think the way that I use my hands really helps define my studio practice—I touch every thread of every weaving that I make and I push type around in InDesign to carefully make the book—it is all very slow-going, a lot of thoughtfulness and time goes into it. My commercial work takes great focus, but it happens in a fast paced, collaborative design environment, and then the fabrics are all machine made, so the processes and outcomes are significantly different. I think there's a lot to be learned from trying to distinguish this space between art and design, personal work and commercial work, and I find opportunities for intersections to be challenging and exciting. I think that is why the chair is my favorite piece in the show, it raises a lot of questions in this arena.

Installation image of Text means Tissue

GLL: This may sound a bit off topic, but I'm so curious about how you organize your time! You are so insanely productive and driven, working in many different arenas—weaving studio, book designing, writing, and working a demanding day job. How do you stay focused?

FC: I think for this show I might have pushed my multitasking to the limit! I was pretty reclusive for about 6 months, so I could get all the weaving and editing done. Really it comes down to awareness of the limited hours in the day, and attempting to divvy it all up into everything you want to do. It's exhausting to burn the candle at both ends, but I've been fortunate in that both ends of the candle are interesting to me, so it feels good. I think the desire to keep making keeps me focused.

FRANCESCA CAPONE FEATURED ON THE CREATORS PROJECT

Francesca Capone's weavings on display in Writing in Threads

Thrilled to see artist & writer, Francesca Capone featured on The Creators Project. So looking forward to her upcoming February solo show at Nationale, Text means Tissue!