Philip Beesley
Award of Merit in 1998 SDA Critical Writing Competition
"And the curtain of the temple was torn..."
[1]
These notes explore hybrid textiles involving large-scale
net fabrics that dress the ground, following and emphasizing topography.
The projects were produced by the author in collaboration
with a number of visual artists including Warren Seelig, of Philadelphia
and Rockport, Maine, Seattle sculptor Katherine Gray, and students
of Haystacks Mountain School for Crafts, DalTech School of Architecture
and the University of Waterloo Faculty of Architecture.
The discussion explores a particular approach to critique
in contemporary textile art. Qualities of the work are explored
using analogies to textiles in clothing and including a number of
personal journal entries eliding with the projects. This pursuit
leads to questions about our own bodies, and our sense of domain.
The fabrics described here have immersive and reflexive qualities.
Reflex is a response that suggests the textile being touched touches
back. Immersion goes beyond the familiar sense of being clothed
and surrounded by a fabric. Here the term implies animated space
expanding and dissolving boundaries. In these fabrics boundaries
of our selves-body and psyche-are questioned.
