Foregrounding Fiber in American Art

For the artists whose work is on view in the Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery, the accessibility and familiarity of fiber provided an avenue to explore, reimagine, and redefine relationships. The artists transformed fibers into intricate artworks depicting not only the diversity of their craft but also their experiences and perspectives as women. Working with fiber has often been dismissed by many art critics as menial domestic labor, but the artists in this exhibition subvert and complicate this historical marginalization.

The exhibition examines themes of family and ancestral relationships, intimacy, and the complexity of being a maternal figure through personal narratives told by the artists themselves. The interpretive text alongside each piece of art includes quotes from archival oral histories in which each artist talks about their work and relationship to fiber art. For Mary Savig, the Lloyd Herman Curator of Craft, this decision to couple first-person narrative with each artwork “manifests the politics of identity and the politics of hand” and fiber’s intimate capacity for storytelling. The artworks on display range from sewn quilts to woven tapestries and twisted sculptures, demonstrating the diversity of the women who made them.

More than a source of warmth and comfort, quilts are a source of power.

Drawn to express the importance and strength of family relationships, Carolyn Mazloomi taught herself to quilt in the 1980s. The Family Embraces celebrates African ancestors as conduits between Earth and the cosmos. The technique Mazloomi used, called reverse appliqué, allows the black bottom layer to show through designs cut into the top white layer.

Matilda Damon learned to weave from her mother, Mary Ann Damon, who was an accomplished rug designer and weaver. Damon learned how to care for sheep, process the wool, and collect plants for dyes, and she distinguished herself by creating rounded forms such as this one. In Protected in Bliss, an eagle can be seen protecting a Diné (Navajo) couple. Continuing the family tradition, Damon devoted summers to sharing her knowledge with her young children and teaching them to weave.

Threads carry the artist’s voice and hint at their personal viewpoints.

Originally intending to sew this quilt for her baby granddaughter, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood began this piece by embroidering beautiful flowers. Soon she realized that she wanted the quilt to include a reference to all the little girls who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. Growing up, Underwood’s father was an undocumented fieldworker in California, and her family regularly crossed the border. In nearly invisible white quilting thread, Underwood has sewn the outline of a running family (father, mother, and little girl) more than two dozen times across the surface of this quilt. The image comes from caution signs that line the San Diego Freeway warning motorists to watch for migrant families traveling on foot along the road.

Alluding to her experiences at rug workshops in Morocco, Sheila Hicks composed this piece with eleven ponytails that can be arranged in response to the surrounding environment. The piece was inspired by the stories of the women she worked with in Morocco who were in polygamous marriages in which multiple wives navigated complex relationships with one man.

Originally slated to open in 2020, Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women is only a small sample of the diversity and depth of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s fiber art collection. “This exhibition offers a mere fraction of how women have taken up fiber for its historical and creative possibilities, recalibrating our perception of a material taken for granted in our everyday lives,” curator Mary Savig noted.

The thirty-three selected pieces offer an alternate perspective on American art, and the first-person archival material provides an intimate view into each artist’s approach. Audio interviews with ten of the artists featured in the exhibition are available through the Backstitch podcast produced by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Archives of American Art. The exhibition, which received funding administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, is on view at the Renwick Gallery until January 5, 2025.

Related Reading:

• On the Trail of American Women in Paris 
• Hisako Hibi’s Work as an Artist Was Almost Lost
• Exploring Border Stories with Artist Tanya Aguiñiga

Meredith Herndon | READ MORE

Meredith Herndon is the writer and editor for the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum.