Each stitch is a marker of time, place and experience.

Seeking Shelter is a contemporary exploration of the traditional Ngarrindjeri mats of Australia. I first encountered these mats while working on fiber sculptures for WOMADelaide in Adelaide, South Australia. The mats folded into womb-like baskets mesmerized me with the simplicity of structure, materials and use. Traditionally the women of the Ngarrindjeri, around the Murray river made the mats by gathering sedge grasses and coiling them into an eight-foot diameter mat. Folded and stitched partially they were used to carry children, scoop fish, and hold sacred objects. Enclosed completely they were used to wrap the dead. This basket structure is symbolic of the sacred fertile state out of which things come.
By recreating this style of mat with materials ranging from seagrass, bamboo, rawhide, natural fiber cords, and other skins, I will explore the potential forms available by simply folding an oval mat, contorting it’s shape and stitching sections of the woven cloth.

Eventually focusing on one material I will create a series of large-scale folded pouches/wombs and install these forms in a pristine space forming the shape a diamond on the ground as a manner to hold space for the viewers thoughts, emotions, memories and deaths - as totems. I would also like to install these sculptures in the landscape with the hopes of photographing and journaling their habitation by wildlife and their deterioration by the elements.

From String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art by Elissa Auther

A quote from Christian Berndard, page 90:

Plastic artists who resort to the use of textile clearly do so for its intrinsic qualities, be they plastic or symbolic, but they never do so in order to approach a discussion about textile nor to make experiments concerning the possibilities of this material the  central concern of their work…The textile artist, on the other hand, …generally ends up giving them the an emphasis and an aesthetic value. The plastic artist speaks about the world with the means he finds in the world and which he appropriates according to his needs, whilst the textile artist always speaks in the first instance about his medium and his works are only concerned with giving it a metaphorical sense, or at any rate, it always dominates all other concerns.

Professor Alfred DeCredico

January 8th, 2010 4:32pm by Elizabeth Leuthner RISD mourns the loss of Foundation Studies Professor Alfred DeCredico ‘66 PT, who died on December 26. He was 65.

Alfred DeCredico’s life-long relationship with RISD began at the age of nine when he took his first art classes here. He studied in Italy as part of RISD’s European Honors Program and graduated from the Painting Department in 1966. Before coming back to RISD to teach in Foundation Studies in 1981, Alfred taught at Providence College, the University of Rhode Island and Harvard University. HIs multidisciplinary work has been shown nationally and internationally and is included in numerous museum, corporate and private collections (including RISD’s). He enjoyed fruitful collaborations with other artists such as Toots Zynsky ‘73 GL and Lino Tagliapietra. Alfred passed his love of critical making and thinking - and of RISD - to countless RISD students, among them his talented sons: Cesare ‘05 PT and Alessandro ‘08 FAV.

Alfred’s passions and interests were many and varied - he collected African art, cooked like a Cordon Bleu chef, maintained and acted upon a keen interest in urbanism, experimented with new materials and learned new disciplines - and above all cherished his role as teacher. For generations of RISD students he was an inspirational and liberating professor and a tremendous influence in the Foundation Studies Drawing studios.

A member of the pioneering group of artists that started the reclamation of abandoned industrial buildings in Providence’s Jewelry District in the 1980s, at the time of his death Alfred had completed the first phase of his second large scale re-purposing project and had begun planning the its next phase.

At his family’s request, Alfred’s funeral service and burial will be private (see Providence Journal obituary here). A memorial service will be held this spring at RISD. More information will be posted on this page when it becomes available.

The portrait above was taken in Providence in 1969 by Steve Liebman ‘70 PH.

———

Al changed my life. I don’t know if I will ever forget Al and the immense gift he gave me. When I was 19 I transferred from St. John’s College to RISD. The first day in Al’s class I was overwhelmed and terrified that I would be found out to be a fraud, of no talent. Earlier in the year I had been disowned by my father and told outright by my high-school art teacher that there was no way I could get into RISD, let alone survive it. In a beautiful old studio on a upper floor a large man strode in, cigarette in one hand and a cane in the other. There was only one chair in the room. Al read to us from his throne an essay by Donald Kuspit for a Schnabel catalogue - (Thanks for the correction Cesare! It was a long time ago…). I was immediately in love. We were sent back to our rooms with one assignment - create a self portrait.

I dreaded the task but set to work drawing an abstract form. The next day class gathered and we pinned our work to the walls. I was immediately frightened that everyone in the room would instantly know that I did not have what it takes to make it through the program. Al paced the room with his cane and cigarette.  I can recall to this day the silence in the room from the students, all sitting on the floor, and the pounding of his cane. After many promenades around the studio Al came to a stop. He announced that there was only one or two decent or maybe good pieces on the wall. You have to understand - some of the best illustrators, painters, sculptors, etc are in this studio with me and have gone on to incredible careers. Al was standing in front of my drawing. I remember that I tried to crawl up into a ball and disappear. I was sure he was going to out me as a failure. And then the most miraculous thing happened. He pointed with his cane to my drawing - “this is good”. He took it down, folded it a little to crop some of the white space and placed it back on the wall. In one single instant he had validated a very difficult choice I had made and given me a small hope that I might not be throwing my life away in art school and that maybe, just maybe I could do this.

I still have the drawing.

The time I spent in Al’s class was one of the most freeing and profoundly developmental for me. He gave me space - literally and figuratively. I listened to David Byrne on my headphones at top volume and painted and painted my heart out. When I needed more room he gave it to me. He even sent me to an empty studio down the hall so that I could work larger and larger. My drawings began to take up walls now. There was an ease and flow that I rarely allow myself. At the end of the class he asked me what was I going to do. He knew that there was the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to stay at RISD because my family did not support my choice of going to art school. I wish to this day that I had taken his advice and lived in a closet in someone’s room and done all that I could to stay in Providence but I didn’t, I returned home.

A few years ago somehow Al and I started communicating by email. He looked at my sculptural work and provided me with encouragement once again. Today, as I was filling out a fellowship application an email came through from one of Al’s sons with the notification of Al’s passing and the plans for a memorial in Providence in April. I’m honestly surprised at how this news has affected me. I’ve sobbed, thought back to the days I spent with him, his guidance and words and a thought overcame me. I’ve been hesitating for months now on finishing any new sculptural work for fear of cracking or exposing myself too much. What a waste. Al gave me the permission to be myself, own it, and even celebrate it in my work when I was 19. Now at 35 I’m back to the spot of questioning myself and my right to create. I must remember and return to that feeling of freedom I had in the studio in Providence and throw myself back into my work, my true work.

Al, I will always remember you. You changed my life and so many young artist’s lives. You were brilliant and kind, a virtuoso as a teacher and artist. I will miss you and cherish the memories.

Each stitch is a marker of time, place and experience.

Seeking Shelter

Seeking Shelter is a contemporary exploration of the traditional Ngarrindjeri mats of Australia. I first encountered these mats while working on large-scale fiber sculptures for WOMADelaide in Adelaide, South Australia. The mats mesmerized me with the simplicity of structure, materials and use. Traditionally the Ngarrindjeri mats are created by gathering sedge grasses and coiling them into an eight-foot diameter mat. Folded and stitched partially they were used to carry children, scoop fish, and hold sacred objects. Enclosed completely they were used to wrap the dead. This basket structure is symbolic of the sacred fertile state out of which things come.

By recreating this style of mat with materials ranging from seagrass, bamboo, and rawhide I will explore the potential forms available by simply folding an oval mat, contorting it’s shape and stitching sections of the woven cloth.

Eventually residing on a material and creating a series of large-scale folded pouches/wombs I will install these in the landscape with the hopes of photographing and journaling their habitation by wildlife and their deterioration by the elements.

I’ve been working on a couple of project proposals and I’ve come back to this old one from a few years ago. I’ll rewrite it and add to it…

I propose a new series of vessels that are an interpretation of an Aboriginal funerary basket made of seagrass, and other natural fibers, using a traditional “blanket” stitch. The basket is finished using coverings of concrete/cement, patined with wax and stains. These images illustrate the stitching and basic form, not the finished surface.

In the Aboriginal tradition the baskets are constructed of a woven mat with a minimum diameter of 8 feet wide. The mats are woven in the round, flat. A corpse is smoked, dried and folded into a prayer stance on top of the mat. The mat is then stitched closed around the loved one. Enclosing the spirit in preparation of an afterlife.

How we hold our loved one’s bodies as they come into and leave our lives is the focus of my explorations in Cradleboards to Coffins.

Nestings, wrappings and bindings encase the spirit and body in birth and death. Mothers swaddle their newborns to provide a womb outside the womb; use casings for transportation of their young, and to create a structured environment in which the parents may choose the their child’s first views of society. In death we send our loved ones away in coffins and caskets. The funerary bindings protect the living from disease, decay and the insurmountable fear of our own death.

Our customs for the newly born and recently departed are vibrantly similar though grossly separated. Through the methods of textile techniques I am exploring the forms of packaging society uses to contain our bodies and our spirits throughout our lives.

Raffia, seagrass, tar and waxes compose these new works. Aromatic, and textural I aspire to transport the viewer into a quiet, meditative space. Some forms are created using random weave basket techniques, intuitively winding individual strands of fiber throughout a mass of loose fiber to create a solid form. Then using random stitching I contort the vessel’s shape sewing the sides together and begin to create the feel of a human form pushing on the sides of the wrappings. As the casings develop I feel the conversation I hold with each one end and my respect for their existence blossoms.