A dress woven out of cassette tape, memoirs stitched into a quilt and 23-karat gold printed onto fabric are all on display as part of the RISD Museum's new exhibit "Evolution/Revolution: The Arts and Crafts in Contemporary Fashion and Textiles."
The exhibit features the works of an international selection of textile-based artists from the U.S., Europe, South and Central America, and Japan, according to exhibition notes written by Joanne Dolan Ingersoll, curator of costume and textiles at the Museum. Textiles dating from the Arts and Crafts Movement - a 19th and early 20th century British movement that emphasized traditional handmade processes in the face of the Industrial Revolution - are on display side-by-side with the contemporary works that the movement has inspired.
The artists featured in the show "grapple with mass production and consumerism" and use "'state-of-the-art' technology as well as traditional methods" to "redefine what 'handmade' means," Ingersoll wrote in the exhibition notes. "The exhibition is organized around the themes of Storytelling, Experimentation and Materials, Collaboration, and Art and Life - key ideas that spring from the Arts and Crafts spirit."
The highlight of the show was the dramatic "Red Zipper Dress" by American designer Cat Chow. The red strapless, floor-length dress, which Chow created in 1999, features a 100 yard zipper that coils up the entire length of the dress. According to exhibition notes, the dress is actually wearable and "the act of putting it on is something of a performance."
Another set of unique creations on display are Tess Giberson's rough, simplistic "Feather Dress" and "Cardinal Dress." The dresses are designed to convey stories. "Cardinal" is a black dress emblazoned with a dramatic red cardinal with words embedded in its tail feathers. "Feather" is a white dress embroidered with poetry written by the artist's sister, and is the first in a collection of ten dresses entitled "A Glance Can Launch a Memory." According to exhibition notes, the passage relates part of a story about the "impermanence of nature and life."
Artist Shelly Fox's white "Showgirl" dress, from her Philadelphia Florist collection, also relates to storytelling. The dress was inspired by pages from a diary found at a flea market, containing notes and old newspaper clippings, which are on display next to the piece. Fox's collection focuses on "intimacy, memory and honoring the past," according to exhibition notes.
Not far from Fox's piece hangs a vintage quilt given new meaning in 2007 by Natalie Chanin of the company Alabama Chanin, who embroidered the quilt with excerpts from the stories of former textile workers, according to exhibition notes.
The show also featured fabrics and dresses made from unusual and experimental materials. A dress by artist Alyce Santoro, a RISD alum, entitled "Silent" is made from woven cassette tape, dubbed "sonic fabric," creating a dark, reflective surface.
The "Animation" series by Joan Morris and Michele Ratte experiments with printing gold onto fabric.
Mexican artist Carla Fernandez, of the Taller Flora company, has several pieces on display made out of a dark, hairlike fabric. According to the exhibition notes, it takes two months to make one piece of the fabric - a laborous process in which wool is soaked with mud, brushed and "agitated" with feet over several weeks.
Other experimental textiles on display included a paper and polyester blend by Sophie Roet and a fabric giving the illusion of being covered in feathers, made by artist Catherine Hammerton.
