108|Contemporary
108 E. Reconciliation Way
Tulsa, OK 74103
United States
Held in partnership with 108|Contemporary, Safekeeping, SDA’s 2023 member exhibition, celebrates diverse works that push the evolution of textiles through the use of color, design, process, material, and concept. Juror Anita Fields, selected 42 artworks from more than 375 submissions. From zip ties to native prairie grasses, the exhibition incorporates a stunning range of materials to explore the concept of “safekeeping.” There are 40 artists included in the exhibition representing 26 states across the U.S. as well as three international artists.
EVENTS
June 2
Exhibition Opens – First Friday Art Crawl, 6-9pm CT
Making begins innocently with random thoughts, memories, experiences, and imagination. An artist responds to such intrigue by invoking the unknown: producing something that has never existed.
The creatives begin dreaming; they look to their arsenal of tools; needles, thread, paper, hand-spun fibers, looms, cloth, discarded objects, technology, or the natural world. The artists begin innovative production by creating symbiotic relationships with their chosen mediums and committing to many tedious processes.
Masterful expressions of hand, heart, and spirit emerge, such as those submitted for Safekeeping. All exquisitely crafted, the submissions were powerful, making the selection process difficult and challenging. I thank the Surface Design Association for inviting me to judge their 2023 exhibit; the unwavering abilities of this genre’s artists are evident and inspiring.
The artists selected for Safekeeping take bold risks. In their diverse practices, they look to innovative techniques that are cutting-edge and experimental. They don’t hold back their thoughts, influences, or what drives their work. Their artist statements reveal highly personal, compelling stories of the complexities of being human. They speak to sorrow, joy, relationships to land, heritage, and the fragile state of our environment.
The makers of Safekeeping lead us into their worlds to share their clarity and comfort when settling into the folds and physical movements of their practices. They find contentment in the meditative, repetitive rhythms of artistic handwork. The works become entry points for healing, exposing hopeful possibilities, truths, and surfaces where the light shines through.
JUROR
Born in Oklahoma, Anita Fields is a contemporary Native American multi-disciplinary artist of Osage heritage. She is known for her works which combine clay and textile with Osage knowledge systems. Fields explores the intricacies of cultural influences at the intersection of balance and chaos found within our existence, explaining that: “The power of transformation is realized by creating various forms of clothing, coverings, landscapes, and figures. The works become indicators of how we understand our surroundings and visualize our place within the world.” In this way, the early Osage concepts of duality, such as earth and sky, male and female, are represented throughout her work.
AWARD WINNERS
First Place – Talia Connelly, My Blood Is Proof They Exist: Pt. 1 The Migration Second Place – Debbie Barrett-Jones, Fading Memory, 1 Third Place – Gracie Baer, To Fold at the Mend SDA Award of Excellence – Michele Heather Pollock, Catharsis
84.64"x78.74" Samples of recovered fabric, X-Rays, threads
This installation is part of a series of works on the textile anatomy and the second life of materials, that constitute ethical as well as aesthetic acts and offer a reflection on the problems related to overconsumption and waste to be recycled.It was carried out from discarded materials.
72"x48"x48" Knit acrylic tubes, PVC, digital projection, audio, lavender
We only tend to 'dwell' on things that we're worried about but 'dwelling' can also be used to describe a home. Whether you need a place to rest your body or your mind, I hope the viewer feels safe and welcomed into this space.
This figure is referential of me, loosely measuring my body and translating that flat fabric that will later be stuffed. There is no exacting, only intention– leading to skewing of the limbs and reworking represented by final patchwork. All materials are grown, organic, or found and upcycled.
We are connected and Interwoven with the rich landscape and our past. The knots exposed remind us how made by one past warp thread connecting to the present warp thread. Using a supplementary warp with blues and green, deconstructing comes after to help create my memory of the family farm landscape.
Dark cloth was left in bottom of remote northern Minnesota lake to stain and erode for one year. Further treated with iron and layered with undyed silk, wax and stitching.
59"x28"x20" Hand stitched, crochet and quilted jacket and skirt
Jacket and Skirt with hand crochet interpretations of COVID cells, Hand embroidered molecular structure of COVID, high definition microscopic image of COVID cell, world map and underarm lists of names of vaccines researched and COVID variants. A world wrapped in COVID: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
My Blood Is Proof They Exist: Pt. I, The Migration, 2018
60"x54" Mohair, wool, rayon, metallic, opalescent slit film yarn
Themes of authority, separation, and migration emerge in the form of policemen, parents, Chinese architecture, airplanes, infants, and American suburbia. Overhead, snow falls from the branches of willow trees in Daguan Park, Kunming— where I was documented to have been found in November 1994.
In large cities across the United States environmental groups are implementing programs to dim the lights in large buildings in order to prevent the death of migrating birds.
"Rent Wound Tear, Mend Heal Repair" is made of canvas, acrylic paint, hemp cord, string and lace, and hangs on the wall in slight relief. It employs processes of cutting, tearing, painting, stitching/sewing, wrapping, writing and knotting to explore themes of pain, loss, healing and redemption.
A quilt in the shape of a door using two variations (pieced and quilted and quilted whole-cloth) of a traditional quilting pattern named Courthouse Steps. The title is a reference to Franz Kafka's Before the Law. “... he perceives a radiance streaming immortally from the door of the Law."
36"x35"x2.5" Madder dyed linen, Maine beach stone, Crocheted.
Bound in a soft covering made of crocheted, naturally dyed linen, these stones are held securely as a mother might swaddle her newborn. Whether solo or in clusters, this series of stone cozies has the gravitas I need to settle my unease.
Experiencing nature with intimacy born of close proximity, tenderness for prematurely broken branches or wind whipped shrubs, triggers a protective tenderness within me. I connect bits and pieces of these fallen trees with formed textiles as visual requiems, as recorded memories of nature’s fury.
My oceanographic work focuses on phytoplankton morphology and health to understand oxygen production balance and food chain priorities. Semi-transparent barrel-shaped sea-salp curl up then gracefully unfold their chains through muscle contraction in a rhythmic dance of feeding on phytoplankton
40"x18"x14" Eco-dyed paper, found metal, handwriting, Coptic binding
Nearly every day for a year, I journaled my grief & sorrow about my Scleroderma diagnosis. One small book signature at a time was bound to a found rusty metal armature, using waxed linen thread and a modified Coptic bookbinding stitch. The piece grew slowly - literally converting my grief into art.
Fabric was woven on a loom with warp being rat tail ribbon and weft of satin tubes, rat tail ribbon, ribbons, thread and beading. This fabric was then hand sewn to form a backpack. Substructure is made from plastic sheets and fiber board. The backpack is stuffed with foam. Recycled straps used
The wind knows no borders. It blows over geographical boundaries, political divisions, and cultural differences without prejudice. The wind knows no national origin or allegiance; it moves freely and without limitation, stirring up powerful storms, gentle breezes and everything in between. Wind does not discriminate and does not favor one land over another. In this way, the wind is a symbol of unity and freedom, reminding us that all people are connected, regardless of borders. And people are like the grains of sand in a sandune; each one diverse but important, united and within reach. We flow together in our humanity, united in our differences.
Anger, represented by a stormy silhouette, attacks a rose above a pond, overhung by a comet. If all the destruction were to strike our world, the universe could still rebuild its beauty.
The COVID pandemic altered our sense of safe keeping. During this crisis, we were told to distance ourselves from others, love from afar, to fear others. “Shelter in Place,” woven in stark black, white and red, portrays our isolation; offering but a tiny window’s view from our separate silos.
Hand shows how warp ikat is made, using natural dyes, text, and pattern, dyed in multiple colors prior to placement on the loom. The prepared threads are the work and could be woven. The work pays tribute to the legendary handwork of ikat dyers over the globe.
Born in Oklahoma, Anita Fields is a contemporary Native American multi-disciplinary artist of Osage heritage. She is known for her works which combine clay and textile with Osage knowledge systems. Fields explores the intricacies of cultural influences at the intersection of balance and chaos found within our existence, explaining that: “The power of transformation is realized by creating various forms of clothing, coverings, landscapes, and figures. The works become indicators of how we understand our surroundings and visualize our place within the world.” In this way, the early Osage concepts of duality, such as earth and sky, male and female, are represented throughout her work.
