Salley Mavor's book illustrations

Cover, Salley Mavor's delightful new book.

Massachusetts is full of surprisingly good local museums and in January my husband and I drove to one of them, the Danforth Museum of Art, in Framingham. We enjoyed an exhibit of original children's book illustrations by Falmouth artist Salley Mavor, all from her new volume of nursery rhymes. The exhibit ended January 23, 2011; however many of the works will travel through 2013. It's worth the trip, and the remaining schedule, and much additional info about this artist, can be found at Ms. Mavor's website http://www.weefolkstudio.com/

The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.

We read Ms. Mavor's earlier works with our children while they were growing up, and enjoyed the books very much. In the latest volume, though, Ms. Mavor has exceeded herself, achieving results with her unique low relief fiber techniques that are better than ever.

I have always liked low-relief sculpture, whatever the specific medium. One highlight of my Italian honeymoon, many years ago, was viewing Lorenzo Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise doors in Florence.

Detail, Adam and Eve panel, Gates of Paradise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AdamEveGhiberti.jpg#filelinks

It took Ghiberti twenty-one years to make his panels. It took Ms. Mavor about one month to make each illustration for her book, which should be at least nominated for a Caldecott prize.

Detail, The Cock Crows in the Morn.

She deftly manipulates materials on the surface layer and then introduces other elements which just break free of the surface, creating depth that is all the more profound for the slim margin between the second and third dimensions.

Miss Muffet, with bowl of curds.


A spirit sheltering from the rain,

beneath a beautifully hand-dyed felt toadstool.


Old King Cole, with fiddlers.

Blanket stitch and felt create a stone castle.


A collage of cottages.

Pretty maids all in a row in contrary Mary's garden.


Ms. Mavor uses many found objects,

including driftwood and acorn caps.

If you have any excuse at all - a friend or relative with a new baby, for example - to buy this book, you'll be delighted with it. Just enjoy the book yourself for a while before giving it away. ISBN 978 0 618 73740 6.

Ms. Mavor signs my books, at the

New England Quilt museum, December 10, 2011.

This just in: Back in 2010, when I first published this post, Jay and I were not able to attend the book-signing at the Danforth. But life gives second chances, and to my delight the NEQM hosted Ms. Mavor in December, 2011. Hie we to Lowell, with our books, and I purchased another copy too. Ms. Mavor graciously signed them all and sat for her picture.

Sheila Hicks at the Addison Gallery

Right, Trapeze de Cristobal, 1971. Left, Lianes Nantaises, 1973.

A blurry photo of Tresors et Secrets, 1990-1995.

Ms. Hicks calls these "soft stones."

In February, Jay and I drove to the Addison Gallery, on the campus of Phillips Andover Academy, to see the first-ever major retrospective of work by textile artist Sheila Hicks.

Nebraska-born Ms. Hicks, now in her eighties, works and lives in Paris. She studied at Yale, formally with Josef Albers and informally with his wife, weaver Anni Albers. Ms. Hicks’ education continued through travels in South America on a Fulbright. Later journeys to India influenced her palette; her saturated colors might be direct from the dye vats of Goa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Indian_pigments.jpg

Much has been written suggesting that her woven and wrapped wool creations are some kind of soft, feminine counterpart to the harsh, masculine materials of modern architecture – glass, steel and concrete. More interesting to me though, is the fact that she obtained large scale commissions from institutional and corporate clients, including entities as disparate as Air France and Target, as well as commissions for public art installations. The studies for some of these monumental works were in the show – for example, a mock-up of a large installation for a Ford Foundation conference room.

2.60 x 103 meters, five tons of linen thread

The Four Seasons of Fuji, 1999

Fuji City Cultural Center, Japan

 To create these large scale pieces, Ms. Hicks developed and managed teams of assistants; this aspect of her process is only touched upon in the videos accompanying the show and it would have been instructive to have learned a bit more about this aspect of her process. In largely ignoring the implementation of her ideas this show wasn't that different from most monographs of the famous architects who are Ms. Hicks' mentors and colleagues. When the work of a star architect is presented, the design and office staff are seldom credited in any way for their role in implementing the vision of the maestro. Museums perpetuate the cultural trope of the visionary genius with this approach. Were curators and biographers to sufficiently credit the management abilities and practical application exercised by designers in realizing their visionary concepts, we 'd have to recognize the teams of people whom the artists indirectly or directly supervise. Somehow, artist as supervisor is less romantic or impressive than artist solely as innovator. The "great man" - now expanded to include the "great woman" - approach to art history continues, and this approach doesn't feel particularly modern.

While I admire the large scale works, I wanted to see the small weavings Ms. Hicks has made throughout her career on a compact portable loom, and which she calls "minimes." In scale these weavings are like manuscript pages, narratives in warp and weft. These are exquisite, and prove that a soaring idea doesn't have to be three hundred feet long.

Olympic Bravery, 1979.

I wasn't able to satisfactorily photograph the small works, but more examples can be seen at http://www.davisandlangdale.com/Pages/SheilaHicks.html

There are also two recent books about Sheila Hicks, including the companion to this exhibit, Sheila Hicks 50 Years, ISBN 978-0-300-12164-3, and an award-winning book from a Bard Center exhibit, Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor, ISBN 978 0300116854.