Program Night — Helena Hernmarck: Weaving the Archive
Presented buy Mae Colburn
Thursday, May 12, 2022
7:00 to 9:00 pm CDT
Zoom link will be sent out via the Googlegroup
In this presentation, Mae Colburn will introduce the tapestries of Swedish-born, US-based artist Helena Hernmarck through the lens of her impressive studio archive. Renowned for revolutionizing tapestry’s aesthetics and relationship to modern architectural spaces, Hernmarck is also a masterful chronicler of her life’s work. For decades, she has maintained a chronological record of designs, weaving recipes, yarn samples, and charts documenting inches woven per day. Even her magnificent wool wall is a record of sorts, a rainbow of color comprised of yarn left over from her many major commissions.
These records serve a practical purpose, allowing Hernmarck to revisit past commissions as she calculates the time and money required to complete the next. They also serve an historical purpose, locating each tapestry within her lived experience and broader world events. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, these records play an active role in Hernmarck’s artistic practice, allowing ideas to migrate, evolve and transform from one tapestry to the next. This presentation will celebrate the weaver-as-archivist, and illustrate how deeply interwoven the artwork and the archive can be. www.hernmarck.com
Mae Colburn is a New York-based scholar and weaver with an art historical background in textiles and photography. She has worked alongside Helena Hernmarck since 2015, both as studio assistant and as archivist documenting the artist’s nearly sixty-year career. Mae’s essay, “In Helena Hernmarck’s Studio,” appeared in the exhibition catalogue for Hernmarck’s 2018 exhibition at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, and her presentation, “Moving into the Museum: Helena Hernmarck’s Blue Wash Tapestries,” was included in the Yale Center for British Art’s Graduate Symposium in 2016. Mae has taught at Parsons School of Design.
Other meetings in May, see newsletter or Googlegroup for contact info and zoom links
Friday, May 6 – The Jane Stafford Study Textiles Group
1:00 – 3:00 pm. Meeting via Zoom
Saturday, May 7 – Tapestry Study Group
11:00 am- 1 or 1:30 pm. Meeting via Zoom
Saturday, May 14 – The Spinning Study Group
1:00 – 3:00 pm. Meeting via Zoom
Thursday, May 19 – Explorers Club
1:00 – 3:00 pm. Meeting via Zoo
Saturday, May 28 – Sit ‘n Spin
1:00-3:00 pm. Meeting via Zoom
Thursday, May 26 — Hands-on Night resuming
7:00-9:00 PM
Austin Recreation Center
1301 Shoal Creek Blvd, Austin, TX 78701
