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Surface Design Journal Winter 2005
Editorial: Uncovering the Surface
 As
we focus intensively on what is happening in our own field, we might fail
to notice the relevance of "surface" to the larger art world. A
serendipitous encounter with an exhibition recently awakened me
to a broader view of the significance of
surfaces.
During a visit to the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill,
North Carolina, I bumped into a small show of works on paper entitled "Surfaces." The documentary text on the wall provided insightful
commentary:
Because an abstract painting or
sculpture is a thing in itself, and not a window that we look through
to see something else, the materials it is made of and the surfaces
that those materials create are very important to the artist and
viewerS [These] prints and drawings create depth through
transparency, layering, and texture rather than using perspective to
suggest itS*
Transparency! Layering! Texture! The words referred to
drawing, collage, printmaking, and photography but could
easily apply to work being made today of fabric and thread. A textile
artist would not disagree with the curator's observation that the
substance underlying a work is crucial
to the result. In the mainstream artworld, however, the ideas behind
contemporary artworks usually get more attention than their material
content.
Happily, that situation may be changing.
As art keeps evolving, new ways
of probing its meaning continue developing. And, as we open our eyes
to fresh ways of looking, new and unexpected connections between
different art forms come into view.
Every two years, the Winter issue of
the Journal anticipates an upcoming SDA conference by connecting with its theme. "Uncovering
the Surface," the conference scheduled June 2-5, 2005, aims to plumb
the depth of visual imagination, technical research, and conceptual
content that surface designers are exploring in ongoing quests. While
not all the articles here directly relate to the conference program,
they are meant to parallel the rich variety of next summer's
offerings.
A glance at the surfaces shown on the
following pages hints at the broadening scope of our field. Materials range from
silk and cotton to twist ties, saplings, and steel. Techniques used include traditional
Bhutanese weaving, hand-sewn mending, punched papers, and inkjet printing. Some artworks
are obsessively dense, some as airy as models of molecules floating in space. Textile
artists have pushed, stretched, bent, and reached beyond conventional definitions
of the discipline. And new possibilities await uncovering.
-- Patricia Malarcher
* Printed with permission from the
Ackland Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
ERRATA
In
the "In Print" section of the Fall 2004 issue (page 58), the name
of the publisher, Thames & Hudson, was inadvertently omitted from the
review of The Bayeux Tapestry by David
M. Wilson.
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