A Common Thread - Barb Vogel

Barb Vogel, a well-known Columbus artist, has created two pieces to be included in the Sue Cavanaugh tribute show. Of her pieces, she says:

Barbara Vogel, Artist Statement

I have never strayed far from themes of loss and memory in my portrait images of family and friends.

Sue Cavanaugh was a renowned fabric artist and a good friend. She started her artistic career after working at and retiring from the Ohio State University. We went to Halloween celebrations, gallery hops, and art exhibitions together. I visited her studios at 400 West Rich Street and Chromedge, and we Zoomed during the COVID pandemic and until her death in 2022. We were board members together and shared artistic endeavors including two shows at the Mansfield Arts Center. Sue died of pancreatic cancer before the final exhibition (but had completed her installation for it).

My “clickless” portraits of Sue were created using a hand-held wand scanner, an instrument designed to be used on books and flat materials. I used to think photography involved a “decisive moment,” in Henri Cartier-Bresson’s familiar phrase, when my photographer’s eye and brain signaled my hand to press the shutter and capture a person’s character. With the wand scans, which take over five seconds, a different intimacy developed between Sue (the scannee) and me (the scanner), as well as a different image. The portraits of Sue were made in her final year, but when she still had hair (before she began her cancer treatments). I printed them on silk, adding to the image’s ephemeral quality. The surrounding fabric alludes to her history and interests.

Each artist that is participating is taking a different approach to the work. Some are directly honoring Sue, some incorporating the fabric into their own designs and creations without direct consideration of how it speaks to Sue or her work, etc.

A COMMON THREAD - Linda Leviton

Linda has created a full fashion ensemble from Sue’s fabric. Of the work, she says:

Title: “Myriade”

 I have always admired Sue Cavanaugh’s work. I got to know her through a small artist critique group here in Columbus. We shared our work, discussed our stuck points and supported each other’s process.

 At the time of my life when I met Sue, I was returning to an earlier practice of using vintage clothing in wall-hung fiber work. My fascination with clothing has been part of my life since I was a child. My grandmother and mother worked in a secondhand clothing store. I often picked out pieces when I visited them at the store and acquired much of my college wardrobe shopping there. Now we call it thrifting.

 My return to using clothing coincided with a slowdown of my commission work in metal due to the Covid pandemic.  I began experimenting with fiber techniques on thrifted clothing.  I felted, dyed, stitched, cut and printed fabric then used it on upcycled clothing.

 Sue showed me her technique of running long stitches through old curtains, parachutes and sheets and how she sprayed dye and paint on these pieces to accentuate the manipulation of form and texture. I used some of these techniques as well as countless others on upcycled clothing work, as I remade over 200 denim jackets in 2023.

This piece is a marriage of Sue’s fantastic sculptural threads and my love of making and manipulating clothing. When I first began to engage with the material I chose from Sue’s work, I thought about making a dress, but just making a dress was not enough. I hand sewed the dress over a mannequin leaving much of what made Sue’s work so distinctive as a focal point. But the garment was not complete and needed my energy in it. To stay with the repurposing vibe of the piece I used industrial felt that I had previously reclaimed from a dumpster. I think Sue would have loved me using these scraps to assemble a cape or train for the dress.

The train is an example of quilting small pieces to make a whole. The lengthy fringe is embellished with beads and threads to represent and mark the long hours of crafting such a garment and a way to echo the elaborate stitching on the dress.

This piece could be a ceremonial garment or gown worn by someone with power.  It represents the power of a single stitch, the resourcefulness of the artist in finding beauty in materials that others might discard, and the artistry of the feminine hand.

A Common Thread - Alice Carpenter

Alice was “on it”!! She was one of the first ones to complete the work for the shows (not that it was a race or anything), and it’s beautiful. Two small fabric pieces, described below:

Artist Statement.

“At first glance the idea of collaboration felt daunting.  Sue’s “for the wall” fabric works are big, bold, and most, with glorious color.  My works on paper are small in scale, intimate, and expressed in a neutral palette. Where was our “common thread”?    I was immediately drawn to her physical thread work, and knew I wanted threads to play a strong visual role in our collaboration.  In the beginning, I focused on Sue’s work without thought to what my work is about. It was not until I started to consider the themes I gravitate toward, that possibilities for compromise took shape.

I found inspiration in landscape to be a common thread. Of Impermanence, is a marriage of Sue’s fabric and love of color with my use of monotype and collage.

In Memento Mori, the structure, a reoccurring theme in my work, stands alone, as we each, in reality, stand alone.  The most intimate, important areas of life are lived behind closed doors.  Here, my structure and neutral palette play out on Sue’s fabrics in a monotype collage.

Each work, Memento Mori and Of Impermanence reflect on the inevitability of death and how we choose to celebrate life.”

Bio.

Alice Carpenter, printmaker and painter, has devoted her printmaking practice to the monotype since 2014.  Her monotypes have received recognition in numerous regional juried exhibitions, as well as national juried shows, including The Butler Museum of American Art 85th National Midyear Exhibition, Directors Award, 2021. Recently, she was honored to have two of her monotypes selected and published in the Fall 2023 online Decoy issue of The Harvard Advocate.

Her work often reflects the nighttime magic found, as a child, in Appalachian Ohio. After the past 50 years of “city living” in Columbus, Ohio, a recent move to Wallingford, CT, has returned her to her rural roots.