MEGHAN SPIELMAN
ARTIST STATEMENT & BIO
Meghan Spielman’s series of hand-woven artworks “Windows and Doors” distills and magnifies the iconography of historical American coverlets and quilts while also evaluating our complex relationship with domestic craft heirloom objects.
Hand-crafted home textiles have traditionally been cherished and passed down within generations of families, however, as time passes less and less is remembered about the maker. Many times these mostly female artisans become nameless. The history of these women dissolves into a visual code, conserved by the unique patterns and designs of their textile craftsmanship. Blankets and quilts ultimately transform from functional, to sentimental, to art.
Eliza Calvert Hall spoke of this in “A Book of Hand-woven Coverlets,” originally published in 1912, within which she set out to catalogue the wide variety of hand-woven coverlet patterns prevalent in America at the time. Recording hundreds of commonly utilized weave drafts and their many names, Calvert Hall recognized the ability of these weavings to act as a historical record of a place and time. But what she cherished most was that the uniqueness found within each coverlet pattern is also reflective of the mind of the individual artist who made it. Calvert Hall esteemed these domestic objects to be capable of evoking the same sense of awe one may experience when viewing a traditional piece of “art.” She cites a quote from J.H. Dillard:
It is a pity that when we speak of art, the thought should be of something quite remote from the life of all people…
“Windows and Doors” is one of the many pattern styles that Calvert Hall identifies, and is defined by a simple arrangement of blocks, or a reduction of the classic checkerboard grid. Though the name is visually straightforward, it also suggests a dichotomy between two elements: an inward glance through a window, and an outward movement through a door. This sentiment is reflected in Spielman’s weavings. Rooted in recognizable, universal “craft” patterns, the artworks extract minimal geometric moments and exaggerate them to large-scale, contemporary proportions. Archetypal shapes are transcribed through unconventional and highly tactile material contrasts such as silk boucle, brushed mohair, and chenille. Ultimately, the visual language of Spielman’s works reveres the familiarity and comfort of these classic patterns, while also transforming them from the day-to-day, asking us to reflect upon and perhaps reconsider our relationship with textiles.
Meghan Spielman is an artist residing in Bozeman, MT, specializing in textile artworks hand-woven on a 32-harness computerized dobby loom. Born and raised in Billings, MT, Spielman lived in NYC for several years working as both an artist and a textile designer/colorist for the interior market. In 2020 Spielman returned to Montana. Her artwork has been exhibited in the US, UK, France, Canada, and Australia. Spielman received a BFA in Fashion Design from Parsons School of Design in NYC (2013), and a Master’s in Woven Textiles from the Royal College of Art in London (2017).
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