Eternal Garden

Jenine Shereos

As the uncertainties of 2020 began to unfold,and residencies and job opportunities were cancelled, I found solace in daily walks in the woods and around my neighborhood in Western Massachusetts. As I began to walk, I began to really take notice of the plants around me. Having worked with natural dyes in the past, I began wondering what palette could emerge form my local landscape. It didn’t take long for my curiosity to turn into an obsession. My sunlit west-facing porch became a laboratory of solar dye jar experiments. I began dyeing yarn with the various dye plants that I came across such as Goldenrod, Yarrow, Queen Anne’s Lace, Staghorn Sumac, Black-Eyed Susans, Marigolds, and many others. Soon I expanded my repertoire to include various barks,walnuts, acorns, and even lichen. I began to create a system of cataloging and archiving each color obtained, through labeled yarn samples, photographs, and a collection of dried plant specimens. Currently, I am working on a weaving, the scale of which approximates my dimensions in space. This weaving will trace my encounters with the natural landscape during this surreal year.

An Expanded Sense of Home: Working with the Natural Materials of Our Near Environments

Beverly Gordon and Lisa Binkley

When we hear the word “home,” we think of comfort, safety, familiarity. It is a place we know intimately; it is where we belong. This presentation posits an expanded concept of home related to textiles, where this intimacy and familiarity is extended to the local outdoor environment. When we work with the materials of particular places—plants, twigs, barks, shells, etc.—and incorporate them as dyestuffs, printed images, or additive elements, we come to know those places deeply. Our relationships with the environment then literally become part of the textiles we make, bringing us to a deeper belonging and expanded sense of home. After introducing the premise and touching briefly on popular phenomena such as eco-dyeing and natural baskets, Lisa Binkley and Beverly Gordon will each present their own work. Binkley uses beading and hand stitching, increasingly applying it to cloth she has dyed and printed with botanical materials. She speaks eloquently about developing intimacy and reciprocity with her yard and Madison neighborhood. Her art pieces literally hold the shape, imprint and resonance of her environment—her bigger home. Gordon uses detritus such as bones, pods and shells from my midwestern and Floridian milieus, sometimes dyeing them with materials such as black walnut. These are the basis of three-dimensional collage and assemblage sculpture. Gordon’s pieces all embody a textile sensibility and incorporate cloth and fiber techniques. The presentations will include extensive imagery, video clips and personal stories demonstrating this sense of expanded home.