I've been trying to get to this show for a while now, and I actually paid and made it to the gallery at Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha about a month ago, but they were having trouble with their alarm system, and there were strobe lights all over the museum flashing rapidly. It was instant headache time, so we left, and I made it back today alone. I'm so glad I didn't miss this. What a wonderful exhibit!
Sheila Hicks is a native of Hastings, Nebraska. Here's what Joslyn has as her bio:
Hicks was born in Hastings, Nebraska, in 1934 and trained as a painter
at the Yale University School of Art, taking courses with famed color
theorist Josef Albers, pre-Columbian art scholar George Kubler,
and the architect Louis Kahn. Although she had learned to embroider and
knit early
in life, Hicks became interested in textiles in 1956 while studying
Latin American art. The following year, she traveled to South America, a
formative experience for the young artist. With Santiago, Chile, as her
home base, Hicks toured the continent to photograph the landscape and
historical sites and learn indigenous weaving techniques. These textile
practices, along
with other skills the artist discovered during her extensive travels —
such as back-strap weaving and Moroccan and Guatemalan rug-making —
continue to inform Hicks’s approach, even as she has developed new ways
to use thread. I really love almost all of what they showed, although I found it interesting that the first smaller room of the exhibition gallery, that you could see some of without a ticket, was the least interesting, at least to me. Her colors and use of varied textiles and threads is really inspiring.
