Introduction by Mary Kathryn Jablonski
Diane Ackerman’s book, “A Natural History of the Senses,” helps us explore our world in new ways. Fiber indeed awakens the body, alerts us to the sensuous world. Fiber art/sculpture is especially compelling to see, touch, hear, smell, even taste! We are sometimes caught suckling on our favorite blankets as infants. And if we cannot fully engage with fiber in exhibitions, our sense of intuition, the memory of how particular fabric textures once felt or smelled, can certainly arouse us and provoke desire. Fiber art plays on our minds in a different manner than drawing or painting, subtly entering via multiple openings, perhaps more like say, smoke. The three artists featured in this issue each use fabric and fibers in completely unique, innovative ways. What’s especially exciting about their work is not only what we expect or remember from fiber, but also how they surprise us with the unexpected: chenille represents the movement of flowing water, flowered calico morphs into many-legged whimsical monsters, rugs become self-portraits and Barbie dresses multiply into a magical quilt. How marvelous! Yes, you’ll want to eat them all up, at least with your eyes.
An Interview
Mary Kathryn Jablonski– Many poets and writers will be viewing your work along with the visual artists who read Tupelo Quarterly, so I want to include them in the creative lens through which we’ll be looking at your intriguing sculptures, Hanna. I am particularly interested in physicality of the process I imagine in their making. Can you speak briefly about this?
Hanna Washburn– The process of creating my sculptures is very physical and very intuitive. When I am in the studio, the work begins by making connections, pulling out different fabrics and objects, and seeing how they interact with each other. The early stages involve a lot of pacing, gathering, and questioning.
My work is all stitched by hand, so when the construction begins my hands get very busy. As the work grows, I often find I need to contort my body in different ways to sew new patches and limbs. Sometimes I can sit in a chair and hand-sew in an upright position, but this is often not the case—it is more normal that I am creating an odd shape with my body: sewing upside down, or laying on the ground, or cradling my sculpture in a tangled embrace. I sometimes find that I am making forms with my own body that mirror or mimic the shapes in my sculptures, particularly when working on larger pieces. It can be tiring, but I like that my body and my mind are both actively engaged in the process.
MKJ– I am very much interested in what I’ve read about how memory shapes your work, through the use of recycled materials and the skills your maternal line has passed on to you through generations. Although the work may seem whimsical to some, this “artist as archeologist” is quite a serious role at times, no?
HW– I am often trying to find the overlap between whimsy and weightiness in my work. Working with recycled textiles, alongside objects or furniture that have already lived long lives, there is memory and history embedded in the material. I like to let that speak to me as I work. That is part of the reason I do not plan out my sculptures very much—I like to leave things open so that the material, and my relationship to it, can take form in an organic way.
Humor and playfulness are important to me because they are welcoming and disarming. My practice and my materials are very serious to me, but I never want that to feel opaque or alienating. If anything, I want to show that lightness can exist alongside more serious topics. Much of my work is about the body, change, adolescence, and identity-forming. This is something we all experience, and I want to invite the audience in.
MKJ– Martha Graham said, “The body is a sacred garment.” Is memory stored in the body?
HW– I hadn’t heard this quotation before, and I love it! A lot of my practice is about trying to make physical something that is very emotional, personal, or difficult to say with words. I work with a lot of recycled clothing, garments that cover and comfort the body—in my sculptures, they become the skin. I am Frankenstein-ing these different elements with different histories into one monster. The work becomes a compound of memories, lived experiences, and my experience of the making process. I am partial to a visible, chunky stitch, because it is my way of announcing my presence in the work. I also favor the whipstitch because of its surgical connotations – I think a lot about scars, and they are certainly a very tangible way that the past leaves its mark upon the body.
My method itself also has a kind of muscle memory to it. As I have been working this way for several years, I am able to stitch with a speed and fluidity that I certainly didn’t have at the beginning. I think any kind of physical process that is repeated and repeated lives in the body, ready to be accessed when needed.
MKJ– Let’s touch on the dichotomies in the pieces: we’ve already said they can be formal and fun; they explore absence and presence, push and pull, weight and balance. Celebration and longing?
HW– Absolutely— I endeavor for my body of work to occupy a large spectrum of emotions, experiences, states of being. Even within each individual sculpture, I want to show how seemingly opposite feelings coexist within us. I want my work to be playful and serious, gestural and intricate, strange and yet familiar. There is a sweet spot for me that lives in the middle of these things, in the overlap. My sculptures are not just one thing, because we are not just one thing.
MKJ– Do you find that these dichotomies create a certain tension in the work? And is this intentional? You’ve described that not much in your work is pre-planned, that many of the elements are revealed during the process, the journey, but I’m wondering if any of it depends on the material(s) you’ve selected?
HW– My process is very layered, both in terms of the physical making and the way I conceive of these pieces. There is some push and pull in the concepts and materials—but I think about it less in terms of tension, and more in terms of layers of meaning that exist alongside each other, enriching each other. My patchworking involves juxtaposing a lot of fabrics or other materials that may not go together: whether they visually clash, or the materials do not stretch or yield in the same way, creating ripples and pulls in the textile. Patterns reminiscent of modest domesticity alongside sensual lace or velvet, or vintage fabrics jutting up against more modern materials—these moments feel really generative to me and guide me towards the final forms.
MKJ– One final dichotomy: tell us about the moment when the (sometimes ultra-) personal becomes public as the work goes on display in galleries or museums. As a curator and an artist, you surely know that at times our creative work may be processed far differently by the public than we have intended. Subtle messages may be completely missed. Other meanings that we never intended may be imposed upon the work. What we have created in heartfelt earnestness may be construed as a joke. It seems we have no control over this. What say you?
HW– I think about this a lot! Especially because I am working with many materials that I have sourced from my own life, my relationship to the work and my understanding of its history will always be personal. In many ways, my work is autobiographical; I sometimes see these sculptures as representations of myself in different situations or stages of life. But I am also trying to get at something that feels more communal and shared. I choose my materials in part for their familiarity— whether this sparks a moment of understanding, humor, or confusion for the viewer is out of my hands.
One of the magical things about visual art, one of the things that pulls me toward it so strongly, is this feeling of creating something new that doesn’t already exist. Once it is out in the world, it has its own identity, its own autonomy. Of course, getting feedback from friends, teachers, and peers is an important part of the process in understanding how your work is perceived, regardless of your intent. Another important piece is realizing that not everyone is going to like your work, or even have any reaction to it— the latter is hardest for me. But you gradually build the muscle of sharing your work and having confidence in its meaning—and as you find your audience and other artist friends that see you, that fear starts to fade away.
MKJ– I am reading a dual biography of Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes, “Her Husband” by Diane Middlebrook, for the second time. In it, Middlebrook tells of how private Ted Hughes was and the duality of his personal and public lives. It was said that he often put intimate references in his writing, which only he would know were there, “hidden in plain sight.” Now that is an entirely different take on this subject! Ceramicist Toshiko Takeazu is also rumored to have put tiny poems, unseen messages, wrapped in little clay balls inside her closed vessels, for both the music and mystery they provided.
Artist Statement & Bio
Hanna Washburn hand-sews compound sculptural forms that are constructed from clothing, furniture, household items, and other utilitarian materials. Washburn’s sculptures grow organically into aggregates of color, pattern, and texture that gesture, emote, and hold space. The use of recycled textiles and household objects spark moments of recognition, as materials once used to cover and comfort take on their own autonomy.
Washburn’s sculptures are visually and thematically pieced together; a jumble of memories, feelings, and associations that blend, clash, and overlap. The artist’s mark-making is highlighted in the bright, visible stitching; a visual and functional element that underlines the anatomical aspect of sewing and presents the body as a kind of patchwork. Washburn demonstrates with her sculptures how much we carry in our bodies at once: joy, silliness, softness, passion, strain, and longing.
Hanna Washburn is an artist and curator based in Beacon, NY. Washburn’s work has been featured in publications including The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Cult Bytes, and the Femme Art Review. Exhibition venues include SPRING/BREAK Art Fair (New York, NY), the Dorsky Museum of Art (New Paltz, NY), NADA Art Fair (New York, NY), Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute (Utica, NY), Sotheby’s Institute of Art (New York, NY), and Rice University (Houston, TX). Washburn has held artist residences at organizations including Haystack Mountain School (2023), Vermont Studio Center (2019), and the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Colony (2018).
Washburn received her MFA in Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts in 2018, and her BA in Fine Art and English Literature from Kenyon College in 2014. She currently works in the Curatorial Department of Storm King Art Center.
A Gallery
List of Works
1- Garden Variety, Recycled textiles, thread, batting, glazed ceramic, metal table, spray paint, 34 x 22 x 18 inches, 2024
2- Aerial Root, Glazed ceramic, recycled textiles, thread, batting, stone pendant, drawstring, rope, snap hook, 28 x 18 x 16 inches, 2023
3- Four-Legged Plume, 2022, Recycled textiles, glazed ceramic, thread, batting, 10 x 14 x 14 inches, 2022
4- Jog Your Memory, Recycled textiles, thread, batting, glazed ceramic, nylon cord, shoelaces, glass beads, seashells, found wood, jump-ring, found objects, acrylic paint, 36 x 24 x 20 inches, 2023
5- Catty, Recycled textiles, thread, batting, steel, ceramic feet, 32 x 28 x 20 inches, 2023
6- Mellow Tangle, Recycled textiles, thread, batting, found brass, snap hook, glass beads, buttons, 12 x 14 x 22 inches, 2023
7- Weepy, Recycled textiles, thread, batting, found chair legs, 26 x 24 x 40 inches, 2022
8-Pinky Up, Glazed ceramic, salt-fired ceramic, found wooden table legs, welded steel, acrylic paint, recycled textiles, thread, batting, 28 x 16 x 16 inches, 2024
9- Weird Barnacle, (left) Glazed ceramic, recycled textiles, thread, batting, 8 x 6 x 3 inches, 2022
9- Growing Pains, (right) Glazed ceramic, recycled textiles, thread, batting,14 x 20 x 6 inches, 2022