Review By Kevin T. Kelly

Bo Breda's "She Dreams the World into Being"

Convergence 2000, an international conference of the Handweavers Guild of America, has precipitated a veritable spate of fiber arts shows locally. Two galleries in Hyde Park are featuring group shows using the collective title "Fiber 2000."

Miller Gallery is exhibiting the works of seven talented women. Felt painter Renee Harris, garment maker Ginny Timmons, quilter Mary Wiseman, fiber artist Susan Minnich Sweeney and batik master Arnelle Dow are all from Cincinnati. Wearable art makers Sarmite Svilis and Daiga Henson hail from Latvia. This exhibition shows the diverse range of styles and media that falls under the umbrella of the dubious term "fiber arts." Sculpture, weaving, sewing, wrapping, painting, embroidery, batiking, garment-making, quilting: Anything, it seems, can fall into this category, as long as it's made of some type of fiber.

Although all the works in this show are meticulously crafted, most smack of being simply facile and decorative. Notable exceptions are the felt paintings of Renee Harris, whose depictions of songbirds are exceptional studies in design and illustration principles. By combining contemporary and Edwardian fashion elements, the garments and accessories of Ginny Timmons seem to transcend the "crafty" connotations of the genre.

Around the corner at the Malton Gallery, another eclectic group show includes the work of Bo Breda, Phyllis Sadler, Chad Alan, Beverly Semmens and Katherine Uetz. This exhibit, much like the one at Miller, also celebrates a wide variety of fiber and textile works, all lavishly, painstakingly and beautifully handcrafted.

Phyllis Sadler's machine-embroidered series of flowers are a candy store for the eyes. Intimate in scale (all three are approximately 8-by-8 inches) yet large in scope, Sadler's work creates a visual cornucopia of light, texture and color via complex layering and spontaneous stitching of various types and colors of threads. A master of light and hue, she refers to her creative process as "painting with threads," and this delightful series vibrates with a passionate intensity not found in much of the rest of the show.

Bo Breda's bead-covered gourds also possess a commanding presence, in spite of their diminutive scale. For example, "Kundalini," a phallic-shaped gourd covered with intricate beadwork, transcends the boundaries of fiber and sculpture to become a totemic sexual fetish, loaded with implicit and explicit meaning. In Hindu philosophy, "kundalini" is the energy in the body that flows from the base of the spine, upward through energy nodes known as chakras, through the top of the head. It is often represented as a coiling serpent. The combination of a field of red beads juxtaposed with a multicolored spot pattern resembling that on a boa constrictor or anaconda, coupled with an inscription in blue beads -- "it spirals as it rises" -- conjures up all sorts of imagery from Eastern and Western sources. Following the lead of the inscription, the beadwork spirals upward, culminating at the top of the gourd where the stem erupts symbolically in an ejaculatory fashion, celebrating the concept of fertility and sexual potency prevalent in Eastern and primitive cultures. The snakeskin pattern combined with the serpentine shape and aspect of the stem alludes to the allegory of the fall of man, while the red beads evoke a seedier, more tawdry context reminiscent of bordellos, painted ladies and red light districts. Breda's ability to conjure this myriad of cross-cultural references sets her work apart and elevates it to a much higher plane of interpretation and meaning.

The problem with much of the work produced by fiber artists and other craft artisans is that it seldom transcends the nature of the process and medium. Make no mistake, these artists are amply talented with impeccable craftsmen, but quite often, their work is more about process and materials than in elevating those issues to a higher level.

Renee Harris' "Oriole"

The viewer's experience is enriched exponentially when it's possible to engage a work on several levels simultaneously. Works that withstand the test of time are those which arrest the viewer's attention and establish a dialogue not only on a visual but also on intellectual, visceral and spiritual levels.

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Master of the Dirty Wipe (January 6, 2000)

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