My recent trip to Rochester's Memorial Art Gallery showed me many new artists which is always exciting. There was one sculptural/fiber arts piece there by artist Angela Ellsworth from her Seer Bonnets collection that has been ongoing since 2008.
I have always been a lover of both fiber arts as well as sculpture. I think they require such vision and tactile response. I am always in awe of what people come up with, but also in my own life I have been creating found object art to pass the time. Everything in the world has more than one incarnation despite their intended purpose.
Angela Ellsworth's Seer Bonnets are made of steel, pearl tipped corsage pins. The pearls make subtle exterior patterns and are unassuming while the inside looks like a prickly torture chamber. These bonnets were meant to stand in for Joseph Smith's estimated 35 wives. Ellsworth looks at these bonnets as "tools of translation".
In continuation of Ellsworth investigation of Mormon, polygamous life she had an installation of collared braids and bows called Lady-Ties for a Line Dance. These pieces were worn by her "sister-wives" as live performance pieces. Each lady-tie was monogramed for the performer who would wear it. These pieces again look at the idea of ancestry. The performers would also wear plain, prairie dresses and communicate their desires and intentions through a series of hand gestures.
Ellsworth is said to be interested in the homosocial dynamics found in queer cultures and polygamous communities.
Beyond these bold social statements Angela Ellsworth also works sculpturally with paper, stitching, and motion drawing. Her stitch portraits are done on towels, paper, and other fabrics and are made when she travels from place to place. She stitches those that she misses and love and those she would like to meet.
Her works on paper look at the latent potential of commonly used vessels like cardboard boxes and book casings. She deconstructs them and rubs them with graphite to change their color and texture and to show their geometrical architecture.
Lastly, Ellsworth has a collection of work she calls Walking Drawings in which she looks at the possibilities of mark making in context to the motion of a body. Each work is a single walk in which the number of steps are recorded within the drawing. These are journeys to people she loves.
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