Annual Sinton Lecture: Creating Uncommon Threads
Presented by Virginia Davis, Ana Lisa Hedstrom and Gyöngy Laky Saturday, March 9, 2019, 10 am Koret Auditorium, de Young Museum
Admission: Free for current members of the TAC; $5 for students and members of FAMSF; $10 General Admission (cash or check only)
The focus of this year’s Carol Walter Sinton Program for Craft Arts is on the work of three highly regarded Bay Area artists, Virginia Davis, Ana Lisa Hedstrom and Gyöngy Laky, and the commissions each provided to The Box Project: Uncommon Threads. Their works were chosen from a field of international artists by The Cotsen Collection. These were unusual commissions, in that the artist’s contributions were three-dimensional works to be confined in size to either a 14” X 14” X 3” or a 24” X 14” X 3” archival box.
The late Lloyd Cotsen was a passionate art collector and philanthropist who acquired objects from around the world that could promote interdisciplinary research and scholarship. The objective of the commission was to encourage fiber artists to explore spatial limitations and to challenge artists who work primarily on a single plane to expand into other geometrics. During the presentation, Virginia, Ana Lisa and Gyöngy will comment on how they reacted as artists to the given set of parameters to create one of a kind works.
Virginia Davis has had her work in solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries, nationally and internationally. She uses ikat, a technique of applying color to threads before they are woven into a textile, not only for the dimension it gives her work, but also for its historical and ethnographic aspects. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York Foundation for the Arts, a United States/France International Fellowship, a United States/ Mexico International Fellowship, an Indo-American Fellowship, and by the Ruth Chenven Foundation. International and national exhibitions such as the 13th International Biennial of Tapestry, Lausanne, Switzerland, 9 x 9 x 3, the American Craft Museum, New York, NY have included her work. Her work is included in a number of collections including those of the Chicago Art Institute, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of North Dakota, and Lloyd Cotsen. Her article “Mexican Stitch Resist and Tie Resist: A Tradition Vanishes”, The Textile Museum Journal, Vol. 40-41 Textile Museum, Washington D.C. has been widely circulated.
Ana Lisa Hedstrom‘s signature shibori textiles are included in the collections of the Cooper Hewitt, The Museum of Art and Design, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the De Young Museum, the Oakland Museum, and the Racine Museum. A fiber artist and designer, she has completed public art commissions for the Emeryville Ca. city hall and the American Embassy in Brunei. Recent exhibitions include: one person show at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, 2017; The Box Project: The Cotsen Collection, Fowler Art Museum and Textile Museum, Focus on Fiber 2016, Quilt Visions 2016, Quilt National, 2015 & 17; Materials Hard and Soft, Denton, Texas, 2014; ISS international, Hangzhou, China, 2014. Teaching engagements include SF State University and CCA. She has received two NEA grants and is a fellow of The American Craft Council
Gyöngy Laky is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Her work is in many permanent national and international museum collections. She created large works for the Federal Art-in-Architecture Program and for the City Council Chambers, Sacramento, CA. Her work is in several corporate collections. She exhibits nationally and internationally (solo exhibitions: England, Denmark, Hungary, Spain). In 2002-03, she was one of three to develop an Arts Master Plan for the new Federal FDA. 2003 “Portfolio Series: Gyöngy Laky,” was published by Telos Arts Publishing, England and Bancroft Library, University of California, released her oral history. Laky creates abstract and representational art including language/symbol works. She also creates temporary, outdoor, site-specific works – most recently in Italy. Her art has appeared in numerous publications/press (US and abroad). 2008, New York Times Magazine’s environmental issue commissioned titles (they received an award from Type Directors Club). The Smithsonian Institution houses Laky’s personal papers (Archives of American Art). Laky is professor emeritus, University of California, Davis, (chair, Department of Art mid-1990s). Undergraduate and graduate studies were at UC Berkeley and postgraduate study with the UC Professional Studies in India Program.
The annual Sinton Lecture is made possible with the generous support of The Carol Walter Sinton Fund for Fiber Arts Studies.
Initial Image: The Box Project, This Way and That, Gyöngy Laky. Photo by Kyoung Ae Cho.
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