Save the date for Patricia's workshop on Wednesday, September 21st at 6:30pm!
"Textiles are my sole comfort. I create my work using vintage lace and textiles repurposed from women around the world. They are sewn into shroud-like tapestries, built into oversize hoop skirts, and hand-dyed with natural colors such as cochineal. Tiny stitches of lace aggregate into monumental documents of hidden economies of resilience, craft, and care. The sculptures act as erotic metaphors shaped by the architecture of a modified body, one that shelters and nurtures, conceals and reveals, resists and loves. Slits and openings allow a view into the interior without the possibility of entry; inside hangs ghostly clothing, or hand-dyed bibles in lace girdle books. The ties of aprons read as forlorn arms in search of a body to wrap around. I layer the works with vintage books and objects of lamentation, akin to ex-votos, reliquaries, and other bodily forms offered in request, gratitude, memoriam, or devotion. Tenderness and strength are equal in a beautiful almost monstrous femininity. A body that refuses to comply. This feels especially urgent in this moment, when the autonomy of women’s bodies is under the peril of legal and social control by governmental and religious institutions and individuals. My work is a feminist manifesto of softness.
A needle piercing cloth is a quiet act of resistance and repair. The textiles are gathered mainly from The Lace Archive, an ongoing community repository of thousands of donated textiles and women’s histories. The Archive formed after women began sending me boxes of textiles, accompanied by photos, letters, and stories of the family and maker. I recognized these donations as a community historical archive, representing the untold labor of unknown women. Myriad textiles come to my door; lace, linens, skirts, aprons, napkins, handkerchiefs, tablecloths and duvet covers, embroidered in colorful threads, crocheted in complex patterns, or with unfinished needle work. They include hand-made and industrial, needle and bobbin lace, crochet, tatting, from a mother, sister, auntie, grandmother or great grandmother. I accept all donations; the sole criterion for inclusion is that a family member preserved it and chose to donate to my project. The Archive documents the tradition of textiles being crafted, used, reused, cut apart, and transformed, through economic necessity, in care of loved ones, and for the human need of beauty. Fibers retain the touch of bodies, they are a witness. These stored histories are integral to my work."
Patricia Miranda is an artist, curator, educator, and founder of the artist-run orgs The Crit Lab and MAPSpace. In 2021 she founded the Lace Archive, an historical community archive of thousands of donated lace works and family histories. She has received grants from the Barbara Deming Fund; Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation; Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance; two artist grants from ArtsWestchester/New York State Council on the Arts; an Anonymous Was a Woman Covid19 Relief Grant, and was part of a year-long NEA grant working with homeless youth. She has been awarded residencies at the RUC Rural Contemporary Residency in Italy; the Constance Saltonstall Foundation; I-Park Foundation; Weir Farm Foundation; Vermont Studio Center, and Julio Valdez Printmaking Studio. Recent solo exhibitions include: Five Points Art Center, (Torrington, CT), the Olin Fine Art Center (Washington PA), 3S Artspace (Portsmouth, NH), Jane Street Art Center, Garrison Art Center (Hudson Valley, NY), ODETTA Gallery, and Maine Window DUMBO (NYC). Two-person and group exhibitions include Museo
Camuno, (Breno, Italy); Spartanburg Art Museum (Spartanburg, SC); Dunedin Fine Art Center (Dunedin FL); HV MOCA (Peekskill NY), The Lyman Allyn Museum (New London, CT), Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA), Williamsburg Art+Historical Center, The Clemente Center (NYC). Her work has been featured in PiùValli TV, Movida Terre Camune Magazine, Art New England, Hudson Valley One and Brooklyn Rail.
We welcome Patricia to the studio as our October WIP resident!
You can visit their studio on Sundays from 2pm to 5pm.
Textile Arts Center’s Work in Progress (TAC WIP) is a window into the studio practice of contemporary artists and designers that engages the public in a dialogue with the field of textiles.