anrre ? ?
Anne Wilson: New Frayed Edges
by Janet Marquardt-Cherry
As infants we are surrounded by cloth,
and our clothed beds remain wombs for
rest and recovery. Beds also serve as the site
of most sexualcontact, so that the line of beds
extending back into each family'spast is like
blood lineage; what happened "between the
sheets"made our very existence possible. The
covered table is likewise a symbol of family.It
is the formal setting of the ceremonial meal
at family gatherings.Cloth thus runs through
our lives as a link with the past. Memories of
the activitiesassociatedwith household linens
are revealed in their stains, holes, and frayed
edges. Anne Wilson's work reinforces these
connections by accentuating the flaws, high-
lighting the wear and tear of daily use. In her
new series, Edges, she has taken the worn
marginsof sheets and tablecloths and "mend-
ed" them with hair,the density of the stitches
correspondingto the number of torn threads.
For the past twelve years Wilson has em-
ployed white household items discarded by
family and friends or found in flea markets,
and purchased natural hair to make pieces
about domestic traditionsand the hidden ev-
idence of use. Born in Detroit in 1949, Wil-
son began her studies in art at the University
of Michigan and Cranbrook Academy. She
went on for her M.E A. to the CaliforniaCol-
lege of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and first
taught as chair of the textile department at
the DeYoung Museum Art School in 1973.
Since 1979, she has been a professor of Fiber
and MaterialStudies at the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago. She recently was fea-
tured in a solo exhibition at the Museum of
ContemporaryArt in Chicago (2000) and the
Edges series (Fig. 1) appeared in a show at
Revolution, a Detroit gallery, during the fall
of 2001. A book on her work, Portfolio:Anne
Wilson, was published by Telos Art Publish-
ing in England in October 2001.
Wilson'spieces are hard to read in repro-
duction. White fabrics with fine needlework
done in hair barely show up in photographs.
Little visual informationis given for the cam-
era to read. But sometimes the blanker the
canvas and the plainer the image, the more
potent the layers of memory that are re-
vealed. One need only think of Marcel
Proust's linen napkin, which conjured the
similarstarched sensation of a towel and with
it all the peacock azure effects of the ocean
in Remembranceof Things Past (1922).
Objects serve as symbols for the sifting
process of identity. As Eudora Welty wrote
(in One Winter's Beginning, 1983), "The
strands are all there: to the memory nothing
is lost." Wilson reminds us of the need for a
landscape of things and their use in our lives.
0 WOMAN'S ARTJOURNAL
Her sheets and tablecloths honor the domes-
tic trail of textiles that make up our primary
possessions while publicly recognizing the
marks that use makes upon them. By stitch-
ing colored hair into white fabrics tradition-
ally mended as invisibly as possible, she cre-
ates tiny charts of wear that recall the print-
outs of medical monitoring devices. The
painstakingsewing becomes an illustrationof
the body's friction against the surface of the
material or a cryptic text of the story of the
lives involved. At the same time, her applica-
tion of hair to sheets and tablecoverings is
significant.Hair at the table is taboo and hair
on the sheets invokes intimate use and raises
the question of cleanliness.
The fine qualitiesof the medium evidence
a technical skill and delicate patience. Domes-
tic linens have alwaysbeen associatedwith de-
tailed care;printedsheets only appearedin the
1960s, permanentpress even later.The needle
and the iron were wielded in the service of
familypresentationand comfort.Wilson, even
while creatingrecordsof depreciation,updates
these artisticprocesses by assigningwhat she
terms the "socialconstructionsof propriety"a
place in the public gallery.
Donna Sharrett'sMementos
he TriBeCa district of Manhattan has
long been the location of printshops
where graphic arts are reproduced. Yet
Cheryl Pelavin, herself a former printmaker,
features Donna Sharrett's one-of-a-kind
needlework constructions in her gallery
there. As far as possible from graphic art or
multiple reproductions, Sharrett lavishes
long, meditative hours and laborious tech-
nique on these fragile and minute works. She
incorporates rose petals, colored floss, tiny
beads, even hair in colors that relate to the
naturalelements, making entire handworked
pieces seem organic. Radiating out from a
central motif, the progression of forms re-
sembles biological growth, mirroringthe cy-
cle of life and the layeringof memories.
Sharrett,born in New Jersey in 1958, first
studied painting on weekends with a high
school scholarship at the Moore College of
Art. She went on to the School of the Visual
Arts in Manhattan,where she was impressed
by the way her teacher, the painter May
Stevens, incorporated her personal life into
her artwork. She graduated in 1984, began
freelance jobs, and marriedin 1985. Sharrett
and her husband renovated an old house,
and she had just returned to her painting stu-
dio in 1989 when she received a telephone
call from her mother, Virginia,in South Car-
olina, telling her that she had aggressive can-
cer and was given only six months to live.
Sharrett left immediately to care for her
mother. As they waited out the end together,
she soon found that time weighed both omi-
nously short and heavily unfilled.
"Well,"my mother said the next day as we
sat at the oak table in the kitchen drinking
tea, "what should we do?"
"Do?" I said.
Like this exchange in Anna Quindlen'snovel,
One True Thing (1994), where the narrator
has returned to her parents'home to care for
her own dying mother, Sharrettrealized that
even if one has little time, the waiting must
take a shape. Virginia's unfinished needle-
work projects served to occupy both their
hands, fill the time, and allow the mother to
teach again;they shared difficult techniques,
recounting the traditions of previous genera-
tions of women in their family.
When Sharrett returned to New York af-
ter her mother's death, she was unable to
paint. Trying to stay productive while she
rode the waves of memory and grief, she con-
tinued doing handworkbut began to use ma-
terials symbolic of love, mourning, and tradi-
tional needlecraft, burying herself for hours
in the New York Public Libraryto research
the forms. She discovered that roses were
given both for love and funeral offerings;
their petals were once strewn on the dead,
their belongings and their graves. Sharrett
gives her petals a protective coating and then
edge-stitches them with synthetic hair,recall-
ing both antique hairlace techniques as well
as the wigs often worn by patients undergo-
ing chemotherapy. Nineteenth-century
mourningjewelry made from locks of hair be-
came popular with Queen Victoria at the
same time the Civil War gave American
women cause to import the idea for their own
expressions of grief. Sometimes Sharrett
strings tiny red beads on the hair or copies
her grandmother'scrocheted doily patterns.
As seen on Never to be the same, again: the
46th Memento(2001; Fig. 2) (shown at James
Graham & Sons, New York, 2001), Sharrett
has copied flower motifs in embroideryfrom
the printed fabrics used for women's house-
coats, incorporatingthem into the pieces like
the petals. All the parts are sewn to a rich
black velvet backing, with framed, tiny aure-
oles of hair ends softening the divisions.
Viewers' responses to Donna Sharrett's
work return some of the personal connec-
tions she lost at her mother's death. She has
been astonished at the wide and universalas-
sociationspeople report with her work. Some
go so far as to send her their own precious
mementos or family heirlooms, sensing in
her a person capable of respecting the emo-
tions behind their retention. Each artwork

Anne Wilson: New Frayed Edges
by Janet Marquardt-Cherry
As infants we are surrounded by cloth,
and our clothed beds remain wombs for
rest and recovery. Beds also serve as the site
of most sexualcontact, so that the line of beds
extending back into each family'spast is like
blood lineage; what happened "between the
sheets"made our very existence possible. The
covered table is likewise a symbol of family.It
is the formal setting of the ceremonial meal
at family gatherings.Cloth thus runs through
our lives as a link with the past. Memories of
the activitiesassociatedwith household linens
are revealed in their stains, holes, and frayed
edges. Anne Wilson's work reinforces these
connections by accentuating the flaws, high-
lighting the wear and tear of daily use. In her
new series, Edges, she has taken the worn
marginsof sheets and tablecloths and "mend-
ed" them with hair,the density of the stitches
correspondingto the number of torn threads.
For the past twelve years Wilson has em-
ployed white household items discarded by
family and friends or found in flea markets,
and purchased natural hair to make pieces
about domestic traditionsand the hidden ev-
idence of use. Born in Detroit in 1949, Wil-
son began her studies in art at the University
of Michigan and Cranbrook Academy. She
went on for her M.E A. to the CaliforniaCol-
lege of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and first
taught as chair of the textile department at
the DeYoung Museum Art School in 1973.
Since 1979, she has been a professor of Fiber
and MaterialStudies at the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago. She recently was fea-
tured in a solo exhibition at the Museum of
ContemporaryArt in Chicago (2000) and the
Edges series (Fig. 1) appeared in a show at
Revolution, a Detroit gallery, during the fall
of 2001. A book on her work, Portfolio:Anne
Wilson, was published by Telos Art Publish-
ing in England in October 2001.
Wilson'spieces are hard to read in repro-
duction. White fabrics with fine needlework
done in hair barely show up in photographs.
Little visual informationis given for the cam-
era to read. But sometimes the blanker the
canvas and the plainer the image, the more
potent the layers of memory that are re-
vealed. One need only think of Marcel
Proust's linen napkin, which conjured the
similarstarched sensation of a towel and with
it all the peacock azure effects of the ocean
in Remembranceof Things Past (1922).
Objects serve as symbols for the sifting
process of identity. As Eudora Welty wrote
(in One Winter's Beginning, 1983), "The
strands are all there: to the memory nothing
is lost." Wilson reminds us of the need for a
landscape of things and their use in our lives.
0 WOMAN'S ARTJOURNAL
anrre ? ?
Her sheets and tablecloths honor the domes-
tic trail of textiles that make up our primary
possessions while publicly recognizing the
marks that use makes upon them. By stitch-
ing colored hair into white fabrics tradition-
ally mended as invisibly as possible, she cre-
ates tiny charts of wear that recall the print-
outs of medical monitoring devices. The
painstakingsewing becomes an illustrationof
the body's friction against the surface of the
material or a cryptic text of the story of the
lives involved. At the same time, her applica-
tion of hair to sheets and tablecoverings is
significant.Hair at the table is taboo and hair
on the sheets invokes intimate use and raises
the question of cleanliness.
The fine qualitiesof the medium evidence
a technical skill and delicate patience. Domes-
tic linens have alwaysbeen associatedwith de-
tailed care;printedsheets only appearedin the
1960s, permanentpress even later.The needle
and the iron were wielded in the service of
familypresentationand comfort.Wilson, even
while creatingrecordsof depreciation,updates
these artisticprocesses by assigningwhat she
terms the "socialconstructionsof propriety"a
place in the public gallery.
Donna Sharrett'sMementos
he TriBeCa district of Manhattan has
long been the location of printshops
where graphic arts are reproduced. Yet
Cheryl Pelavin, herself a former printmaker,
features Donna Sharrett's one-of-a-kind
needlework constructions in her gallery
there. As far as possible from graphic art or
multiple reproductions, Sharrett lavishes
long, meditative hours and laborious tech-
nique on these fragile and minute works. She
incorporates rose petals, colored floss, tiny
beads, even hair in colors that relate to the
naturalelements, making entire handworked
pieces seem organic. Radiating out from a
central motif, the progression of forms re-
sembles biological growth, mirroringthe cy-
cle of life and the layeringof memories.
Sharrett,born in New Jersey in 1958, first
studied painting on weekends with a high
school scholarship at the Moore College of
Art. She went on to the School of the Visual
Arts in Manhattan,where she was impressed
by the way her teacher, the painter May
Stevens, incorporated her personal life into
her artwork. She graduated in 1984, began
freelance jobs, and marriedin 1985. Sharrett
and her husband renovated an old house,
and she had just returned to her painting stu-
dio in 1989 when she received a telephone
call from her mother, Virginia,in South Car-
olina, telling her that she had aggressive can-
cer and was given only six months to live.
Sharrett left immediately to care for her
mother. As they waited out the end together,
she soon found that time weighed both omi-
nously short and heavily unfilled.
"Well,"my mother said the next day as we
sat at the oak table in the kitchen drinking
tea, "what should we do?"
"Do?" I said.
Like this exchange in Anna Quindlen'snovel,
One True Thing (1994), where the narrator
has returned to her parents'home to care for
her own dying mother, Sharrettrealized that
even if one has little time, the waiting must
take a shape. Virginia's unfinished needle-
work projects served to occupy both their
hands, fill the time, and allow the mother to
teach again;they shared difficult techniques,
recounting the traditions of previous genera-
tions of women in their family.
When Sharrett returned to New York af-
ter her mother's death, she was unable to
paint. Trying to stay productive while she
rode the waves of memory and grief, she con-
tinued doing handworkbut began to use ma-
terials symbolic of love, mourning, and tradi-
tional needlecraft, burying herself for hours
in the New York Public Libraryto research
the forms. She discovered that roses were
given both for love and funeral offerings;
their petals were once strewn on the dead,
their belongings and their graves. Sharrett
gives her petals a protective coating and then
edge-stitches them with synthetic hair,recall-
ing both antique hairlace techniques as well
as the wigs often worn by patients undergo-
ing chemotherapy. Nineteenth-century
mourningjewelry made from locks of hair be-
came popular with Queen Victoria at the
same time the Civil War gave American
women cause to import the idea for their own
expressions of grief. Sometimes Sharrett
strings tiny red beads on the hair or copies
her grandmother'scrocheted doily patterns.
As seen on Never to be the same, again: the
46th Memento(2001; Fig. 2) (shown at James
Graham & Sons, New York, 2001), Sharrett
has copied flower motifs in embroideryfrom
the printed fabrics used for women's house-
coats, incorporatingthem into the pieces like
the petals. All the parts are sewn to a rich
black velvet backing, with framed, tiny aure-
oles of hair ends softening the divisions.
Viewers' responses to Donna Sharrett's
work return some of the personal connec-
tions she lost at her mother's death. She has
been astonished at the wide and universalas-
sociationspeople report with her work. Some
go so far as to send her their own precious
mementos or family heirlooms, sensing in
her a person capable of respecting the emo-
tions behind their retention. Each artwork
takes Sharrett about four months to finish
now. She says they grow more intricate and
time-consuming and laughs about people
who recommend streamlining techniques or
mechanized aids. For her the labor is the
point. The meaning of "Alterations"as the
theme for the most recent work relates as
much to her own life changes during the pro-
duction period as to the sewing term.
Her titles seem as fragile as the works.
Taken from her mother's letters, phrases of
advice, regret, encouragement, self-reflec-
tion, and hope weave themselves into the
webs of memory Sharrett visualizes. The re-
sults can only be compared to poetry, with
her balance between structure and meaning,
meter and emotion.
I dreamedI movedamongthe Elysianfields,
In conversewith sweet women long since dead;
Andout of bossoms which that meadowyields
I wove a garlandfor your head....'
Toni Hambleton: Silent Spaces
What was here before imperfectly erased
and memory a reliquary in a wall of silence.2
t is difficult to experience the profound si-
lence and reverberating history described
by 19th-centuryvisitors to monumental ruins
like Stonehenge, Angkor Wat, or the
Parthenon.Today one must wait to climb the
steps, wander the inner circle or silent aisles,
until the gift shop or ticket window and turn-
stile open, gaining access only in the company
of other pilgrims.The result is often less than
profound as crowds surge and jostle or ropes
keep one's observationsto the perimeter. Ro-
mantic meditations on solitary moonlit visits
are left to past poets. Yet we still seek a glim-
mer of those who once gathered in great
buildings'shadows. The same stands true for
other walls, the simple shelters with simple
histories. If we are open to their stories, their
worn corers, smudges, graffiti,and nail holes
will share memories of human usage.
Antonieta Hope (b. 1934) grew up in
Mexico City looking at these eloquent
spaces, collecting the broken pieces of their
forms. She was surrounded by multiple styles
and cultures, which she absorbed on tours
with her family:old monasteries and church-
es, ancient pyramids, abandoned haciendas.
Her grandfather,who was a corporate lawyer
for the American and English mining compa-
nies in Mexico, had purchased a family re-
treat in the style of an old English manor
house from the days before the nationaliza-
tion of Mexico'sgold and silver mines. Near-
by, in the structures of the abandoned mines
and foundries, she hid to read and dream.
FALL2002 / WINTER2003
% ~~M.
. .. .....
. ............. ----.- I _
.tf
Fig. 1. Anne Wilson, fromEdges installation,
RevolutionGallery (2001), found cloth, hair and
thread embroidery.Photo:TimThayer.
She loved the poignant frameworkof empty
doors, windows, and niches.
She met her husband, Bob Hambleton, a Fig. 2. Donna Sharrett,Never to be the same,
again: the 46th Memento(2001), mixed media,
Korean War veteran, when she was teaching
22" x 22". CourtesyCheryl PelavinFine Art.
at a privateschool and he was attending Mexi-
co City College. After marryingin 1959, they
moved to Chicago, and since she did not have
work papers, she spent her time in the library
and museum while beginning a family. In
1963, when Toni was already the mother of
two boys and a girl, the familymoved to Puer-
to Rico, where she still lives. Toni became in-
volved with the Children's Theatre, finding
her love for set design among other tasks.
In November 1972, the Hambletons'
fourth child, Howard, died of cancer at age
ten. As an outlet for her grief, Toni turned to
the ceramics she had recently begun to study
alongsideher nine-year-olddaughter.She met
Jaime Suarez, an architectwho taught from a Fig. 3. ToniHambleton,Spaces to Meditate In/On
sculptural approach, and they became close (2001), stoneware, h. 20" x 22". Artist'sCollection.
friends, co-founding the Casa Candina, Inc.
Since 1980, she has taught ceramicsthere and ate only to sand it off in orderto leave tracesin
in her own studio between extensive world the scratchedand scribbledareas. The results
travelsto visit the beauty of old places. reproducethe effect of old walls with peeling
Hambleton uses clay slabs as high as two coats of paint and crumblingsurfaceswith un-
feet to construct realms that remind her of intelligible texts. She calls them her "inner
broken walls and their history-hiding places homes, silent spaces...imprintedwith history."2
with secrets and safety. Fascinated with the Although the artworks suggest the un-
way the ruin of buildings creates new spaces, known memories of others, they also pique
her pieces have movable parts that can be re- personal associations for viewers. They are
arrangedto change the relationshipbetween like little boxes, but evocative of life-size
enclosed and external areas. In 1978 the structures. One's imaginationcan wander be-
Hambletonsbought land with a wooden bohio tween the walls in the manner of Alice
(a sort of open mountain cabin) in the rain through her looking glass. The visual reading
forest outside San Juan and in 1990 built a becomes an encompassing experience, sug-
home they designed themselves, responding gesting such comparable effects as the
to that environment. sounds of silence, the smells of decay, or the
Hambleton creates in series. Spaces to sensation of coolness.
Meditate In/On (2001; Fig. 3), from her cur-
rent one, was begun duringher husband'sfinal NOTES
illness in 2001 and in the aftermathof Hurri- 1. EdnaSt. VincentMillay,excerptfromson-
cane Georges-a storm that took the roof off netxvi of FatalInterview(1931).
her home and destroyedthe surroundingland- 2. CarolynForche,TheAngel of History
scape. The work was created by breaking (New York:HarperCollins,1994), 44.
white stoneware slabs into pieces, which are
then covered with engobe (a thick slip), which Janet Marquardt-Cherry is professorof Art
she scratchesand scribbleson while wet. Once History at Eastern Illinois University,
dry,she covers the pieces with copper carbon- Charleston.
0
takes Sharrett about four months to finish
now. She says they grow more intricate and
time-consuming and laughs about people
who recommend streamlining techniques or
mechanized aids. For her the labor is the
point. The meaning of "Alterations"as the
theme for the most recent work relates as
much to her own life changes during the pro-
duction period as to the sewing term.
Her titles seem as fragile as the works.
Taken from her mother's letters, phrases of
advice, regret, encouragement, self-reflec-
tion, and hope weave themselves into the
webs of memory Sharrett visualizes. The re-
sults can only be compared to poetry, with
her balance between structure and meaning,
meter and emotion.
I dreamedI movedamongthe Elysianfields,
In conversewith sweet women long since dead;
Andout of bossoms which that meadowyields
I wove a garlandfor your head....'
Toni Hambleton: Silent Spaces
What was here before imperfectly erased
and memory a reliquary in a wall of silence.2
t is difficult to experience the profound si-
lence and reverberating history described
by 19th-centuryvisitors to monumental ruins
like Stonehenge, Angkor Wat, or the
Parthenon.Today one must wait to climb the
steps, wander the inner circle or silent aisles,
until the gift shop or ticket window and turn-
stile open, gaining access only in the company
of other pilgrims.The result is often less than
profound as crowds surge and jostle or ropes
keep one's observationsto the perimeter. Ro-
mantic meditations on solitary moonlit visits
are left to past poets. Yet we still seek a glim-
mer of those who once gathered in great
buildings'shadows. The same stands true for
other walls, the simple shelters with simple
histories. If we are open to their stories, their
worn corers, smudges, graffiti,and nail holes
will share memories of human usage.
Antonieta Hope (b. 1934) grew up in
Mexico City looking at these eloquent
spaces, collecting the broken pieces of their
forms. She was surrounded by multiple styles
and cultures, which she absorbed on tours
with her family:old monasteries and church-
es, ancient pyramids, abandoned haciendas.
Her grandfather,who was a corporate lawyer
for the American and English mining compa-
nies in Mexico, had purchased a family re-
treat in the style of an old English manor
house from the days before the nationaliza-
tion of Mexico'sgold and silver mines. Near-
by, in the structures of the abandoned mines
and foundries, she hid to read and dream.
FALL2002 / WINTER2003
% ~~M.
. .. .....
. ............. ----.- I _
.tf
Fig. 1. Anne Wilson, fromEdges installation,
RevolutionGallery (2001), found cloth, hair and
thread embroidery.Photo:TimThayer.
She loved the poignant frameworkof empty
doors, windows, and niches.
She met her husband, Bob Hambleton, a Fig. 2. Donna Sharrett,Never to be the same,
again: the 46th Memento(2001), mixed media,
Korean War veteran, when she was teaching
22" x 22". CourtesyCheryl PelavinFine Art.
at a privateschool and he was attending Mexi-
co City College. After marryingin 1959, they
moved to Chicago, and since she did not have
work papers, she spent her time in the library
and museum while beginning a family. In
1963, when Toni was already the mother of
two boys and a girl, the familymoved to Puer-
to Rico, where she still lives. Toni became in-
volved with the Children's Theatre, finding
her love for set design among other tasks.
In November 1972, the Hambletons'
fourth child, Howard, died of cancer at age
ten. As an outlet for her grief, Toni turned to
the ceramics she had recently begun to study
alongsideher nine-year-olddaughter.She met
Jaime Suarez, an architectwho taught from a Fig. 3. ToniHambleton,Spaces to Meditate In/On
sculptural approach, and they became close (2001), stoneware, h. 20" x 22". Artist'sCollection.
friends, co-founding the Casa Candina, Inc.
Since 1980, she has taught ceramicsthere and ate only to sand it off in orderto leave tracesin
in her own studio between extensive world the scratchedand scribbledareas. The results
travelsto visit the beauty of old places. reproducethe effect of old walls with peeling
Hambleton uses clay slabs as high as two coats of paint and crumblingsurfaceswith un-
feet to construct realms that remind her of intelligible texts. She calls them her "inner
broken walls and their history-hiding places homes, silent spaces...imprintedwith history."2
with secrets and safety. Fascinated with the Although the artworks suggest the un-
way the ruin of buildings creates new spaces, known memories of others, they also pique
her pieces have movable parts that can be re- personal associations for viewers. They are
arrangedto change the relationshipbetween like little boxes, but evocative of life-size
enclosed and external areas. In 1978 the structures. One's imaginationcan wander be-
Hambletonsbought land with a wooden bohio tween the walls in the manner of Alice
(a sort of open mountain cabin) in the rain through her looking glass. The visual reading
forest outside San Juan and in 1990 built a becomes an encompassing experience, sug-
home they designed themselves, responding gesting such comparable effects as the
to that environment. sounds of silence, the smells of decay, or the
Hambleton creates in series. Spaces to sensation of coolness.
Meditate In/On (2001; Fig. 3), from her cur-
rent one, was begun duringher husband'sfinal NOTES
illness in 2001 and in the aftermathof Hurri- 1. EdnaSt. VincentMillay,excerptfromson-
cane Georges-a storm that took the roof off netxvi of FatalInterview(1931).
her home and destroyedthe surroundingland- 2. CarolynForche,TheAngel of History
scape. The work was created by breaking (New York:HarperCollins,1994), 44.
white stoneware slabs into pieces, which are
then covered with engobe (a thick slip), which Janet Marquardt-Cherry is professorof Art
she scratchesand scribbleson while wet. Once History at Eastern Illinois University,
dry,she covers the pieces with copper carbon- Charleston.
0