Imperfecting at Portland TextileX Month

The joys of supporting fiber and textile art.

A few months back I applied to a call for proposals to be part of Portland TextileX Month (PTXM). After following the festival for a while, I felt it was time Imperfecta joined that community and this year's theme - Legacies - felt not only exciting but also rather timely.

Since the gallery will turn two years old at the end of October, the festival timing also felt like a perfect excuse to double down on celebrating our humble yet mighty space. So I wrote up a proposal titled "Imperfecting" and, to my great delight, the gallery was accepted to be included in the program - you can see the full event calendar at this link.

In this blog I wish to share a few insights on why I am excited to be part of PTXM, what the "Imperfecting" show is about, which artists are part of the show and why fiber and textile art are important, playing a key role in sociey and the art world.

Portland TextileX Month

The Portland TextileX Month Festival was founded and organized by Textile Hive to build community while fostering cross-pollination among textile enthusiasts, artists, businesses, schools, and cultural organizations (source). This mission-driven textile organization is devoted to reflecting as well as making connections across Portland's (and beyond!) vibrant and diverse textile community.

This year's festival is focuses on the theme "Legacies" and organizers framed that theme by highlighting how our legacies offer pathways for collaboration, learning, and transformation as they are fundamentally rooted in community and shared knowledge across cultures and generations (source). Questions (source) that all applicants were asked to consider included:

• What are the legacies we choose to build, honor, preserve, and what are the legacies we decide to relinquish?

• How do our legacies collectively create space for what is yet to come and nourish ideas waiting to be formed?

• Against the backdrop of our common struggles, which stories, spaces, gatherings, and teachings will be vital threads we pass forward? and

• How do we know where one legacy ends and another begins?

The Imperfecting Show at Portland TextileX Month

When I wrote the application for "Imperfecting," I explained that the proposed exhibit would explore the beauty of imperfections, grounded in the belief that nothing is perfect

and imperfections are what makes humans human. If you read our story in the "about" section of our website you are already aware of how foundational such a belief is for the imperfecta gallery.

So, when the PTXM team asked "how does your event relate to the theme of Legacies?," I deepened such a discussion by explaining how our collective legacy is constellated by human imperfections that enabled complex, rich, diverse ways of being.

I also added that in a world where AI and the myth of endless perfection abound, the imperfecting exhibit brings to the forefront the notion that our endless, beautiful imperfections are legacies to honor, cherish and preserve. This sentiment will not surprise those that read my columns in ACM Interactions, as I shared multiple times my fears and frustrations with how techhology is (mis)used as well as the opportunities that technologies could bring to the art world - if we just did not lose track of what truly matters.

...more on this themes in a future blog - and back to our Imperfecting show!

One thread at a time, this fiber group show shares with viewers the complex fragility and relentless strength of our humanity -- a humanity that thrives on imperfect choices and the ability to learn and recover when choices prove to be mistakes. After all, our imperfections propelled previously unimaginable transformations, beauty and opportunities that are now indelible parts of our collective realities.

The Artists part of Imperfecting

Four artists were invited to include work in the imperfecting show. Here I would like to share a little more about each of them, and show you one piece part of the show.

Deborah Kruger’s abstract fiber art focuses on the tragic losses of the 21st century, specifically the local and world-wide impacts of human-induced climate change and habitat fragmentation on the extinction of bird species, and death of indigenous languages. The feathers in her textile paintings, sculptures and installations are fabricated from recycled plastic that is silk-screened with images from her drawings of endangered birds and overprinted with text in endangered languages such as Shorthand, Yiddish, Purepecha and other indigenous languages, whose last living speakers/users are in steep decline. Using plastic feathers embeds a layered narrative that addresses the relentless consumerism driving the loss of both bird and human habitat.

The Imperfecting show includes 7 artworks by Deborah, 4 of which were specifically created for the show.

This piece, titled "Turquoise Fringe," was selected as backdrop for the show's poster as it's simply magnificent! I do not know you, but at my end it reminds me of the sky at the end of a sunny summer day in the Pacific Northwest. Made with hand screen printing on recycled plastic, hand and machine sewing, wrapping, waxed linen thread, varnished bamboo stick, thios artwork measures 22 x 11.5 x 1  inches.

Jacqueline Myers-Cho is a mixed media artist with textiles as main focus. Her contemporary fiber art blends portraiture, abstract, and storytelling in a collage style, with recurring themes such as self reflection, searching for meaning, transformation, and transitions. Focal point images part of her work come from her original oil / acrylic paintings, original silkscreens, and drawings that have been printed on fabric. She uses reclaimed fabrics of all kinds, text, hand stitching, machine stitching, crochet, embroidery, and 3D elements. Her work ranges from textile wall hangings/ quilts, fiber vessels, textile mixed media sculptures, art dolls, wearable art , and installations.

The Imperfecting show includes 9 artworks by Jacqueline, 3 of which were created specifically for thew show. I here included a textural vessel made with fabric, paint, sand and varnish (size: 6 x 10 x 7 inches) as it's a stunning contemporary piece. Also, it reminds me of a day in the desert that I must have lived in another life - sun setting at the horizon as I sip mint tea with my family...

Portland-based Kim Tepe’s inspiration is the natural world and she approaches it by layering textiles to mimic the colors and textures in landscapes - velvets become moss, wools become tree bark, and crisp satins become ice. With a focus on textures and shapes found in nature, Kim creates microcosms with fabric and thread, recreating trees with life-like tree bark, leaves, needles, lichen, moss, and individual mushroom gardens that stand alone to remind us of what is outside our door. Tepe uses a slew of traditional and nontraditional techniques such as quilting, embroidery and felting manipulating the media into shapes. She uses scrap fabric, upholstery samples, thrifted yarn, embroidery supplies, dying what she needs to get the desired results. 

The Imperfecting show includes 4 artworks and 6 wearable pieces by Kim, some of which were created for the show.

Here, I decided to showcase "Not all leaves are green," as this lovely 16 x 20 inches piece shows a novel direction for Kim: one were fabric and thread are quilted and stitched to recreate natural surfaces on a canvas -- with leaves that can protrude and be adapted in various positions thanks to concealed metal threads. I love the color combination!

Pupillae (aka Italian doll maker Gioconda Pieracci) lives in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennine National Park and is heavily inspired by her love for theatre, literature and nature. Nature and the nature that surrounds her area is a particularly strong source of inspiration in her work. Her focus on doll making started as a result of her need to give shape to all the images and stories that she has inside. As she puts it, “art and creation are the possibility of entering a "fluid zone" where one can draw and give back to the outside.”

Occasionally, Gioconda collaborates with Italian illustrator Marco Calvi, like in the case of this piece, titled "La Lechuza," where Marco illustrated a multilayered theatre that Gioconda then incapsulated at the core of the main character: a legendary, malevolent witch from Mexican and Tejano folklore who can transform into a giant owl to prey on people, particularly children and drunks, by appearing at windows or in nearby trees to lure or carry them away.

This piece is made with paper clay, paper mache, fine loden fabric from Tirolo, hemp yarn, cotton embroidery yarn, wood sticks, felt fabric, cardboard, epoxy clay, and original ink and watercolor illustrations (15 x 6 x 6 inches with 22" wingspan).

Why fiber/textile art is crucial

There are many reasons why fiber and textile art plays a key role in contemporary art culture as well as society.

A first reason is a direct consequence of the materials used in fiber and textile art, materials that offer unique tactile and sensory experiences to connect diverse audiences around personal and cultural storytelling (e.g. Zoe Huddleston’s “Come Inside” installation or the ThreadDNA workshop by Adela Cardona Puerta).

Second, fiber and textile artists frequently promote sustainability by using eco-friendly materials and dyes (e.g. Ivy Stovall's workshop focused on eco dyes), deploying recycled medium (e.g. works by imperfecta artists Deborah Kruger and Jaqueline Myers-Cho) or experimenting with industrial production discart to create new forms of fibers and art-friendly surfaces (e.g. SuSeLi Biotextiles and their the Kombucha Cellulose workshop).

Third, fibers and textile offer a way for us to (re)connect with ancient traditions and contemporary issues through both traditional and modern techniques (e.g. Past Thread, Future Fits by Black Earth United and Elso Inc or Jenny Wilde's Shifting the Narrative).

Last but most definitely not least, fiber and textile art challenges historical marginalization of women's work, as it reframes it from a devalued domestic craft into a celebrated and legitimate form of fine art. This reclaiming and the subversion of these materials and techniques are crucial and enable artists to challenge gendered labor, while elevating personal narratives, and asserting feminist perspectives (so many great examples and reads about this, including this Frieze article by Lauren Elkin, author of the book Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art).

In brief, the versatility of fibers and textiles enables artists to create powerful social commentaries as well as to express personal creative visions while tackling global concerns. Their work is a powerful tool to help us pay attention, unfold, narrate, dissent and embrace. 

I hope you will have an opportunity to engage with and celebrate our Imperfecting show, which opens on October 4th and runs through the 31st.

Interested in our fabulous art catalog? 

Peruse 1000s artworks here - you can filter by artist, medium, collection and pricing.

Want to gift art but unsure of what to pick? 

Purchase a Gift Certificate or email us at imperfecta@studioloi.xyz for custom suggestions.

Interested in showing your work at imperfecta? 

Find opportunities in the "open calls" section of our website.