A Beautiful Mess: Weavers and Knotters of The Vanguard | Bedford Gallery
Six Works for A Beautiful Mess: Weavers And Knotters Of The Vanguard
A Beautiful Mess: Weavers and Knotters of the Vanguard is a vibrant, contemporary textile exhibition organized by the Bedford Gallery at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, CA in 2021. It features a diverse selection of fiber arts including wall hangings, installations, and monumental pieces.
Made by an all-female roster of conceptual artists, the exhibition showcases twisted, tied, and braided works made from tactile and utilitarian materials like rope, yarn, clay, and wire. The artists featured are Windy Chien, Kirsten Hassenfield, Dana Hemenway, Kira Dominguez Hultgren, dani lopez, Hannah Perrine Mode, Liz Robb, Meghan Shimek, Lisa Solomon, Katrina Sánchez Standfield, and Jacqueline Surdell. Collectively, they push the boundaries of fiber art and elevate the status of weaving and knotting from craft to fine art. The artists infuse their works with personal stories and socio-political concerns to further revolutionize the previously marginalized genre of fiber arts.
The group exhibition has traveled on to The Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, FL (2021), Sonoma State University in Sonoma, CA (2022), the Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville, AL (2022), the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona, FL (2022), the Sarasota Art Museum (2023), and the Montgomery Museum of Art in Mongomery, AL (2024, forthcoming).
The Six Works
Press Release Excerpt
“Renowned artist Windy Chien pushes her craft to the cutting edge by integrating technology, design, history, and even linguistics into her large-scale installations. The San Francisco-based artist believes ‘it is the responsibility of artists to modernize traditional crafts and forms,’ and she fulfills this promise with slick, ingeniously woven pieces rooted in architectural and digital engineering. Chien is passionate about the practice of knot making, with a keen interest in the practical function each knot possesses. By elevating the art of the knot into expansive installations, she challenges the original role of these rope-bound objects and, as American writer Rebecca Solnit puts it, allows ‘the mute material world [to] come to life.’”
CREDITS
Artist: Windy Chien
Studio Windy Chien Team: Charlene Tan, Melissa Bolger, Khaia Brogan
Frame Engineering & Fabrication: Neal’s CNC
Curators: Emilee Enders, Carrie Lederer
Photography: Windy Chien, Claire Astrow