Making Art From Whole Cloth in Group Exhibit

Sayzie Carr believes in connection, in bridging gaps, in joining together the expected and unexpected. For many years, she worked in textiles and as a painter, yet kept the two worlds separate. But Carr’s newest work potently fuses these two identities. “Threads,” a group show at The Re Institute in Millerton, features a selection of her new pieces. Here and there are “fabric paintings,” the repeated appearance of mattress ticking and indigo, lively “pillow sculptures” and unexpected applications of both technique and color. Asked if she now applies a particular label to herself, Carr says, “I just think of myself as an artist, and this is my medium. This has been a real process of exploration for me. I’m bridging the gap and getting away from the idea that textiles are only crafts.”

As an artist, Carr returns again and again to ideas of home (hence her intentional and repeated use of mattress ticking), migration and the interconnectedness of humans. She has a playful sense of color and an adroit way of incorporating texture that brings a freshness and potency to work that incorporates long-existing techniques, including hand dyeing, painting, sewing, felting, and crocheting. See the artist’s use of welting and pom-poms in “The Dream,” or the webs that run across “Coordinates” like a series of dreamland transit routes or constellation maps run wild; note the way that Carr’s pillow sculptures manage to suggest beds and home while feeling like something else entirely. 

Discussing the creation of this new work, Carr says, “We’re living in a time of such unease and transition, and if I have a big, arching theme, it’s let’s start trying new things and doing things in a different way. We are living in a time of urgency, and I think that artists are really feeling that.” 

This same anxiety is present in the work of other artists featured in “Threads.” Kingsley Parker’s tree paintings — collectively titled “A World of Hurt: Our Forests”—have a beautiful, mournful quality. The scale of “Venerable, Vulnerable, Irrelevant, Wrathful” makes it hard to turn away from the dying tree at its center. 

Nearby, Kate Hamilton works on a truly monumental scale. Her oversized sailcloth T-shirt and overalls are what she terms, “giant monuments to nothing.” Items of the everyday made enormous, they are at once delightful and shocking in the space. 

Deena LeBow works on a much smaller scale, using both hand and machine embroidery to create her pieces. Both delicate and intense, the images draw one in, asking to be paused in front of and considered. 

“Threads” is open through July 13 at The Re Institute, 1395 Boston Corners Road, Millerton, NY.  For more information, visit www.thereinstitute.com.