Works in Progress is a durational show. It features pieces in the process of being made in PO Box’s twice-monthly Fiber Night gatherings. As long as the show is up, viewers can see the projects developing.
Below are excerpts from the Artist Statements. In addition to giving information about their craft or their process, artists were asked to think about larger questions: How is creation/repair a metaphor for what you are making or repairing in your life? How do you know when your project is finished? What does making this object illuminate for you? The statements suggest how art might reflect life, more broadly, or the process of day-to-day living.
- "Blocking" is a final stage of knitting, where the finished work is stretched out and ironed or steamed to lock the fibers into their final shape. Blocking can make fabric that looks bunched up, crumpled, and irregular bloom into something beautiful and open. My bedroom doesn't have much space on the floor to lay out blocking mats, so it can sometimes take me years to get around to blocking things. When I finally do, I'm always amazed at the difference.
- It's always okay to change your mind and transform a finished project from one thing to another.
- When I start an embroidery project, I make the design digitally, then print it out and trace it onto fabric using cheap heat-erase pens. Later, when I'm done, I use an iron or hairdryer to make the pen marks disappear. I need strong, bright backlighting to see the lines through the fabric well enough to trace them, so I usually tape the printout and the fabric to a windowpane and trace them by sunlight. But I work 9-5, and there's not much sunlight in the winter! Relying on sunlight for my craft requires me to be ruled by the natural world in a way that's unusual for me. It makes me aware of how few of my daylight hours are really mine, and how hard it is to squeeze art making into them.
The starting is easy, exciting. The middle ebbs/flows, often helped by working in community. The finishing is rushed or endless.
Marianna Buchwald
Molly Kraus-Steinmetz
Nico Cavalucci
Hugh Graham
Matthias Regan
Sophie Canadé
Jessica Renner
Hayley Hinsberger
Mary Miller
Max Gingold
Tracie
Ella
Sage
CJ
CC
