We Who Seek: Textile Artist Spotlight
If you know Seek well, you know we always strive towards zero waste production, upcycling leftover fabric into napkins, bandanas, sleep sets, and more. Recently, we had the idea to give some of our extra fabric to 5 incredible textile and fabric artists in our community to use in their work. Ranging from quilts and necklaces to baskets, sculptures, and even a hobby horse, the results showcase the diversity of textiles as a medium. Scroll through for brief interviews with the artists and to view the work they created.
Alice Wu
Your name and where you live:
Alice Wu // Oakland CA
What has been your artistic journey so far? How does your artistic process work now?
My artistic journey has been a wild ride. I’ve tried a lot of things that haven’t worked out, and have had to start over again many times. I’ve had very fruitful years, and years of creative drought. This year, I am blooming again. This feels amazing!
What inspires your love of working with textiles?
I have made clothing, sculptures, performances, and sometimes a combination of all three and more. My studio is in West Oakland. You can find me there most afternoons. My artistic process involves a lot of mental prep for the hands-on parts. I may do a quick thumbnail sketch, but rarely detailed drawings or plans. I write; to understand my own work better, I document my thoughts and reflect on the things I’ve made. This always leads to surprising connections. I am always re-arranging and sorting my materials. Some days I just pull out bins and begin unfolding and re-folding fabric pieces, sort through colored paper scraps, create stacks of wood pieces and cardboard boxes, and then put it all back on the shelf. Inspiration might strike just as it’s time to go home for dinner. I just start combining elements, attaching these bits together, committing the materials’ relationship to one another by fixing them together in more permanent ways with glue, paint, screws, wire, stitches.
Where do you go or what do you do when you’re looking for inspiration?
For me, “studio time” includes all the thinking, reading, writing, and doing things outside of my studio, so when I am ready to work with my hands, the materials quickly come together the way they have always meant to. Textiles are wonderful to work with because they are so ubiquitous in our everyday lives, and ripe with metaphor and all kinds of possibilities for reconfiguring. Every artistic process that excites me, and an infinite number of physical gestures, are possible with textiles: when I cut and sew, rip and slash, I create new shapes. I can sculpt with fabric when it’s wet. Textiles can be shredded, pulped and reconstituted. A textile's tensile strength allows me to drape, hang things from it. I can alter its surface texture and how it reflects light. I can make things that pack and roll up efficiently, then unfurl magnificently and take up space. When I seek inspiration, I don’t have to go too far; my go-to are the materials I have on hand.
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Eleanor Anderson
Your name and where you live:
My name is Eleanor Anderson and I’m currently based in Hamtramck, Michigan.
What has been your artistic journey so far? How does your artistic process work now?
I received a BA from Colorado College where I studied studio art generally but had a love for book arts and printmaking. I loved the way that printmaking delivers an unexpected delight when pulling a piece of paper off of the matrix to reveal the ink underneath, and I haven’t stopped looking for that sort of thrill-seeking sense of anticipation in my work. After college I spent 3 years as a fellow at Penland School of Craft — a residential craft school in North Carolina. I worked for Penland in exchange for free workshops, and it was there I fell in love with clay and fiber. This interest led me to pursue an MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where I just finished my degree in May. I currently live in a loft in Hamtramck, Michigan (a city within the greater city of Detroit) and I work out of my home, as well as attend residency programs around the country.
What inspires your love of working with textiles?
Aside from this amazing prompt, I typically make large-scale fabric-collages and installations mixing traditional and digital techniques such as hand-embroidery, machine-embroidery, beading and weaving. I dye fabric and source found textiles from thrift stores, intuitively reconstructing materials to create wall works that read as arial maps of playgrounds. This deep experience of play is the engine that drives my practice forward - I am searching for a sense of adventure and delight in my process as well as a visual reward for my viewer.
Where do you go or what do you do when you’re looking for inspiration?
Although spending time in nature nourishes me spiritually, I find that I am more artistically inspired when I’m in an urban environment. Like many other folks, during the pandemic I learned the power of daily walks, and it has become part of my practice. I find that when my body is moving in a forward motion, my ideas flow as well. I glean inspirational sparks about color and form from the way a city’s inhabitants naturally collage together paint colors, typography, and building materials. I also turn to art history and the history of objects for inspiration: I love Scandinavian and Japanese textile designers Marimekko and Sou Sou as well as fiber artists of note in the 20th and 21st century; Shiela Hicks, Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, the Quilters of Gees Bend, Sonia Delaunay, Alan Shields, Judith Scott and Anna Hepler.
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Hope Okere
Your name and where you live:
Hope Okere // Santa Barbara, CA
What has been your artistic journey so far? How does your artistic process work now?
I started my creative life as a fashion designer. As a teenager I would pin cloth around my body to create designs. I went on to study fashion design at Parsons in New York City. I graduated in 2007 and began a 13 year long career as a women’s wear designer. A couple years ago I began wanting to work with fabric in a completely different way and I created a collection of fiber sculptures. I applied for graduate schools on the west coast and ended up at UC Santa Barbara last Fall. There, I started working toward my MFA as an interdisciplinary artist.
My current work is focused on anthropomorphic sculptures that become immersive installations. I also create video art based around movement and explorations of my identity as a Black, Nigerian-American woman. Through working with video, I’ve learned ‘sculpt’ my own soundscapes using mainly my voice and body to create the sound.
What inspires your love of working with textiles?
I’ve always been attracted to textiles and that thread is omni-present in my work. It is the texture, color and fluidity of fabric that I am drawn to.
Where do you go or what do you do when you’re looking for inspiration?
Pre-pandemic, I traveled and found inspiration in the textiles, architecture, and nature of the different cultures and environments that I was in. In general, the ocean and the creatures that inhabit it are a constant source of subconscious and conscious inspiration.
I’m a person that has ideas often, so I keep a list of every idea. In my art practice, the ideas for my sculptures are centered around materiality, a curiosity about combining materials as well as experimenting with weight, gravity, and suspension. I’m also inspired by dance, movement, and traditional Nigerian crafts and sculptures.
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Sara Dunne
Your name and where you live:
Sara Dunne // Los Angeles, CA
What has been your artistic journey so far? How does your artistic process work now?
I keep sketchbooks but sometimes I just make things up as I go along. Even when I do start from a sketch I often stray from the original idea and the project organically changes shape.
What inspires your love of working with textiles?
I love the history of textiles, the ancient craft of weaving and creating fabric. I'm drawn to the different textures of yarns - specifically slubby/nubby and floofy textures. I love that working with textiles is a hands on, tactile experience.
Where do you go or what do you do when you’re looking for inspiration?
I enjoy spending time with plants and bodies of water. I love to float. I'm also very inspired by film, by what a character wears and what it says about who they are. And of course, vintage weaving books and magazines.
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Tiffany Navarro
Your name and where you live:
My name is Tiffany Navarro. I live in Brooklyn, New York in the Fort Greene neighborhood.
What has been your artistic journey so far? How does your artistic process work now?
As a child I enjoyed drawing from observation. I used to help my grandmother sew blankets when I was very young and the process of choosing the fabric and planning how it would turn into a useful project was exciting to me. In 2000, I attended Pratt Institute to study painting and there I learned a ton about color, composition and shapes. In 2012, I moved to Mexico City for five years and during that time I was a part of an artist collective that was called ATEA. We were located in the historical center and there I was surrounded by exciting color combinations and textures. While I was a part of ATEA I started working on fabric collages that were made of fabrics from Mexico. I loved doing this because my family is from Mexico and it felt like I was piecing together a part of myself with those fabrics. In the first year of the pandemic is when I bought a sewing machine and started taking online classes on how to make quilts. Now I continue to learn new quilting techniques and I hope to make a series of large narrative quilts that tell part of story.
What inspires your love of working with textiles?
I love the way fabric feels and I love the usefulness of it. I love that quilts are meant to keep people warm and comfortable. I have a feeling of purpose when I make quilts. Sort of like they will help give someone the need of warmth.
Where do you go or what do you do when you’re looking for inspiration?
I’m not sure if I believe in inspiration. I mostly believe in having a consistent work process and that is when creativity comes out. Working on an art project is when I feel most motivated and excited about creating. I do read memoirs often and I will say that the women I read about motivate me to be brave and to work hard for what I want. Some of my favorite memoirs are written by: Megan Rapinoe, Sonya Sotomayor, Thi Bui and Billie Jean King.
