R E V I E W
Above:
Donald Fortescue,
Lawrence LaBianca
Sounding
, 2008, steel,
rocks, dried aquatic
flora and fauna, polycar-
bonate, zipties, sound,
120x48 x 96 in.
Right:
Nathalie Miebach
Warm W inter,
2007,
reed, wood, data,
72 x 60 x 72 in.
Nathalie Miebach trans-
lates computer weather
maps’ binary code into
the binary warp and
weft of basket-weaving.
they do, however, invite data
to inspire the creative process.
Sculptor Nathalie Miebach, for
instance, uses basket-weaving
techniques to chart weather
statistics for her bulbous (and
deceptively sensual)
Warm
W inter,
2007. In this case and
many others, there seems a hap-
py marriage of craft and com-
puter. After all, as Wilson
points out in her essay for the
show’s catalogue, weavers and
computers both rely on binary
code. It’s only natural, then, to
transfer digital images to the
loom’s warp and weft, just as
weaver Lia Cook does with her
mysterious Face Maze series,
2006, an assortment of cotton
tapestries that magnify digital
photographs. Christy Matson,
another textile artist, makes a
more artistic association: Her
Soundw(e)ave,
2004, visually
maps the whirrings made by
three looms—the first is hand-
operated, the second computer-
assisted, the third fully auto-
mated. As the viewer moves
through the series, the patterns
grow progressively denser, or
noisier.
It’s messy going with live
technology, but the exhibition
can claim two unqualified suc-
cesses among its fully wired
selections. Susan Working and
E.G. Crichton give woodwork
an extra flourish—they embed-
ded a table with two monitors
that loop footage of its birth-
place, a lovely alpine forest. Just
as appealing, Donald Fortescue
and Lawrence LaBianca’s
Sounding,
2008, is a
Moby Dick-
them ed
installation with a steel
table as the centerpiece. They
filled the table with beach rocks
and lowered it for two months
into San Francisco Bay, where
it was coated with aquatic flora
and fauna. Best of all,
Sounding
is attached to an enormous,
overhead horn—it looks like a
giant phonograph—that broad-
casts the swishing, womb-like
noises recorded in those waters.
On the flipside, two plugged-
in pieces drip with disdain for
new media. Sculptor Tim Tate
pairs video with blown and cast
glass
for Burned B u t N ot Forgot-
ten,
2008, an overly earnest eu-
logy to books. Furniture maker
Shaun Bullens combines a finely
crafted birdcage with footage of
a perched parakeet for his liter-
alist meditation on freedom and
flight. Neither artist bothers
with an artful presentation of
electronics—rouge wires are left
exposed and look as though
they’re writhing against the
gallery’s smooth surfaces.
Pieces like these make you
think: Perhaps the new materi-
ality is still in its adolescence.
Many of these artists, especially
the weavers, with their nuanced
projects, use digital technology
in smart, sophisticated ways.
For others, meanwhile, it
comes off crude; it hasn’t out-
grown the awkward phase.
+
Christy DeSm ith is a freelance arts
writer in Boston.
dec/jann american craft 025
Photo Nathalie Miebach
