Photos/Clockwise
-1974
Mirror%
Mat Laky; 1976,1980, Thomas Layton; 2000, Barbara Reynolds; 2000, Peter Mu
Gimme More!
“Gyiingy Laky: Common Sense” is at b. sakata garo,
Sacramento,
c a ,
through A pril4.
bsakatagaro.com
textiles.ucda vis.edu/laky/gyongyi.o
openlibrary.org/details/fiberartoraloolakyrich
fda.gov/oc/whiteoak/completedbuildings.html
aaa.si.edu/collections/collection/lakygon.htm
Laky’s Evolution
1974 A t Fibcrworks,
Center for Textile
Arts, Berkeley, seated
on hemp rope in front
of Afghani textile.
1974 In favorite
Guatemalan shirt at
work on
Mirror, Mirror,
of tree prunings, plastic
tree rope, hemp and
telephone wi re.
1976 Shaping
Inner
Glyphs Out,
for Social
Security Admini-
stration Building,
Richmond, CA.
1980 A t artist’s retreat,
making
Skins o f Trees.
2000 Demo ot con
struction process in
Open-Ended Crater.
2000 Arranging or-
chard prunings for
Protest: Naught fo r
Naught
in Austria.
2007 Creating
Oada
from plastic babies
and sealant.
approval and, Gibson says, the results “are surprising us. You think
one artist works in a certain way so they’re going to produce this
kind of work. This person is known for another kind of work, so
they’ll probably do that. And they don’t. They come back with
something you weren’t anticipating.”
This news delights Laky. It means that her guidelines have
helped to achieve one of the
f d a ’ s
primary goals: the creation of
site-specific installations that no one could have imagined four
years ago. It also reflects the progression of one of Laky’s own earli-
est considerations, which has wound its way through her life and
her work: how can artists, architects and designers promote original
thinking? Jim Melchert, professor emeritus at UC Berkeley and
former director of the Visual Arts Program at the National Endow-
ment for the Arts, recently acknowledged Laky’s unique contribu-
tions: “Laky has helped bring new life to fiber art by stretching the
boundaries of how we define it. It isn’t just the ob jects that she
places in the landscape that are new, it is the landscape itself that
her work has helped to change.” *
apr/maj'09 american craft 061
