Artist:
Rachel Wittels
Bio:
“I am a weaver from Rochester, NY, and about to finish my MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Detroit MI. I am also a high school art educator. I consider both art making and education equal parts of my practice.
Artist Statement:
My textiles center narratives from within my own communities to inform design. Expanding upon the practice of visualizing history within my field, my textiles archive moments of my sociality.
I examine specific content surrounding relationships. My source material comes relationships, often text threads and conversation archives. After looking closely to find the cadences and emotional energies expressed in my gathered data set, I ask my textiles to preserve these human moments in the systems and patterns of their being.
The final stage of my process circulates my works, through acts of gifting, back to the people whose lives have informed each textiles’ making. The work, by design, becomes a tangible circulation of the stories and relationships it holds.”
Artist Statement:
“Technically speaking, through this work I have learned how to expand the possible size of weavings I can make via double cloth techniques and double weave structures, effectively transforming a textile into twice its size into a functional blanket.
Conceptually speaking, I have translated yarn color into data points that document my digital conversation archives with my home-town best friend. In the chronological order from top to the bottom of the blanket, blue horizontal weft yarns represent Jess sending a message to me, grey horizontal weft yarns represent me sending a message to her, and white yarns indicate the change of the day, within the dates listed in the title of the piece. Moments of clasped weft breaking the striping pattern reference conversation more emotional conversation topics where more supportive is offered to one friend or the other. The work is a coded archive of the earliest digital records we have of our friendship through text messages.
I felt the need to make this project as a pair, to be used as friendship blankets. The blue warped blanket (artwork 1) lives with Jess in NY, while the grey warped blanket (artwork 2) stays with me in MI. The work offers a tangible object of support, warmth, and embrace we can both use to connect with each other since it has become increasingly difficult to find time to spend together as long-distance friends in a global pandemic.
I believe this work represents the theme of transformation as each blanket is expanded emotionally from a functional blanket, to an textile of emotional support and connection.”
Techniques Used: Doublecloth handwoven blanket with areas of clasped weft woven using 4 harnesses of a MaComber floor loom.
Materials: Cotton and Acrylic yarns
Measurements: 58" x 54" x 0"
