Beginning Friday, By Hand Gallery will usher in a new season of Gallery Walks by displaying an alternative art form: woven tapestries by artist Laura Foster Nicholson.
Tova Lesko, manager of By Hand Gallery, said the theme of Nicholson’s show is highly agricultural.
“They are weavings of rural landscapes from the Midwest, and it’s kind of like the architecture of energy generation so there’s a lot of generators, turbines and things depicted in the weavings,” Lesko said.
Nicholson said the rural landscape of Illinois and the western part of Indiana provided inspiration for her pieces.
“The pieces are about the modern rural landscape as shaped by big agriculture,” Nicholson said.
Nicholson’s art work will soon expand past the rural landscape.
“I’m starting to enlarge the landscape to include energy production that exists side-by-side with the landscape,” she said.
The project, according to Nicholson, takes a look at both the physical layout of the land as well as the moving parts that adorn the agricultural world ?today.
“It’s an assessment of what a rural landscape in the region really looks like, the flatness of the ?landscape — where I am it certainly is flat — the way the light hits the structures and now how we’re continuing to change the landscape by building all of these structures for mining or capturing energy,” ?Nicholson said.
This is the first show By Hand has put on since the holiday show last semester.
Lesko said this show differs a bit from what By Hand Gallery usually shows.
“Each one of our shows are very different from one another,” Lesko said. “We’ve never worked with Laura before. She’s a really well-known artist, and we’re lucky to have her.”
Lesko said the aim of the woven tapestries show is to bring a novel artistic perspective to Bloomington’s already diverse creative scene with Nicholson’s ?ornate woven pieces.
“We’re really just hoping to bring something new to Bloomington,” Lesko said. “We’re just kind of wanting to get people thinking about energy generation and weaving itself. I don’t know if we have a lot of shows that are just woven pieces.”
Lesko said she herself practices weaving as an art form.
Lesko said she understands the concentration and commitment that go into producing a large ?woven piece.
“(What’s most impressive is) how much time she has put into each one of the pieces,” Lesko said. “There’s so much detail. I’m a weaver myself, and I know how much time that she put into these. Even though they’re only maybe six large ?pieces, each one took weeks to make.”
The pieces are also on Nicholson’s website, ?www.lfntextiles.com.
The woven tapestry pieces often include a brightly-colored, striped background with an agricultural landmark in the foreground.
The pieces play with a three-dimensional area not found in prints or ?photographs.
Nicholson said she has worked on these pieces for about a year.
She used the basic weaving process with which she is comfortable.
“They’re woven on a loom by hand,” Nicholson said. “There is a preselected set of colors that I’ve put on the loom already, often striped, and I weave across it row by row by inserting smaller lengths of thread where I want the object ?to be.”
Nicholson said she intends to add to the collection as she finds inspiration for subsequent ?pieces.
“The work is evolving somewhat, but I’m staying on the same theme for the foreseeable future,” ?she said.
