A Shared Table
curated BY Samantha M Connors
Featuring THE DYE CLUB
On-View April 4 - April 21 Opening Reception April 6, 4-7 PM
About the exhibition:
Within each piece of fabric that clothes us, keeps us warm, cleans our messes, lays coveted in our fabric stash, or sits in a landfill, lays a hidden story of how it got there and the history of textiles spanning across time. In the US, most of us have become separated from these stories as manufacturing processes have shifted to other countries. However, as news stories rise denouncing the working conditions of textile mills and the impact the industry is having on the environment, artists and makers across the world are joining the slow fiber movement. Artists involved in this movement encourage a regional process of intentional making in partnership with local farmers, makers, and the environment.
A Shared Table highlights the work of Philly Dye Club, an informal monthly meet-up started in 2021, between local artists from a variety of disciplines with an interest in natural color. Attending a Dye Club meeting feels like entering a portal into a space of research and collaboration often only seen in academic spaces, artist residencies, and family gatherings. The artists get together to create and share resources over a shared meal, often bringing materials they’ve gathered from their individual gardens, family heirlooms, and dye recipes they found in archival texts. The space they’ve created thrives on individual and collaborative interrogation into their fields, with dyes as the throughline between them. The exhibition at Da Vinci Art Alliance strives to introduce each viewer to the individual work happening within each artist’s practice because of their membership within Philly Dye Club, as well as the feeling one encounters when attending a monthly meetup. A Shared Table invites the viewer to learn about dye processes, find their own shared community of investigation, and look closer at our individual and collective consumption within the fiber industry.
A Shared Table will be on view in Gallery 1 at Da Vinci Art Alliance starting April 4th until April 21st.
The opening reception will take place on Saturday April 6th, from 4-7pm.
Workshops will be held throughout the month run by Philly Dye Club members as part of Everyday Futures Fest. Check the linked website for more information.
ABOUT THE ArtistS:
Philly Dye Club is an informal monthly meet-up of local artists from a variety of disciplines with a shared interest in natural color. Started in 2021, Philly Dye Club is self-organized by current members: Cindy Stockton Moore, Mary Smull, Kelly Cobb, Miriam Singer, Caresh, Laura Hricko, Michael Konrad, Cait Nolan and Angela McQuillan.
Cindy Stockton Moore is a Philadelphia based artist who creates site-responsive multimedia work that engages the history, environment and poetic narrative of a landscape–with an emphasis on materiality and process involving natural pigments and aqueous media. Her experimental, often collaborative, videos have been screened in festivals and exhibitions nationwide and abroad. Cindy’s writing on art has appeared in FlashArt, ArtNews, NYArts Magazine, SciArt Magazine, The New York Sun, and Title Magazine in addition to university and web publications. Cindy brings knowledge of historical materials and methods of ink-making to the dye club; she organizes and often hosts dye club meet-ups from her studio in Kensington.
Caresh is a conceptual artist currently experimenting with various textiles & processes to integrate with his broad experience in stained glass, screen printing, graphic design, and multi-medium ephemeral collage. He is the owner of SoulPurl 77 Design, which began in 2005 as an explorative stained glass fabrication studio in South Philadelphia, Pa. He is a recent addition to the Philadelphia Dye Club and the Space 1026 artists collective with the intention of furthering the evolution of his artistic practice. As a member of the dye club, Caresh brings his experience in design, screen printing, and abstract creative approaches to anything traditional.
Cait Nolan is an artist, educator and land steward based in South Jersey. In her most recent work she creates hyper-local place based quilts using fabric that she dyes with plants grown and foraged on her four acre property and surrounding public land. Cait has recently joined the Philly Dye Club and hosted a fresh leaf indigo dyeing workshop for the group in the summer of 2023. As a newer club member she joyfully shares her 6 years of experience with dye plant growing and the dyeing process.
Mary Smull is an artist, writer, and curator living in Philadelphia, PA. She merges object and action in a practice centered around textile processes to expose the diversity of attitudes toward labor and the complex relationships surrounding art and craft, amateur and professional, producers and consumers. Her work has been exhibited at Moore College of Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia International Airport, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Temple Contemporary, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Cranbrook Museum of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Racine Art Museum in Racine, WI, and the Craft Alliance in St. Louis, MO. Mary brings her expertise of traditional textile processes such as weaving and repeat pattern screen printing to Philly Dye Club.
Laura Hricko is an artist, educator, and lifelong Philadelphian dedicated to the conviction that art is transformative and capable of enriching the lives of all people. Laura’s artistic practice involves various fiber arts techniques including sewing, quilting, embroidery, and textile surface design. She is curious about the potential a material has, and the historical and social implications of the processes she uses. Most recently, Laura has been captivated by the processes of natural dyeing, which allow her to feel a connection with nature and history, as she employs these ancient craft techniques to coax color from homegrown, foraged, and food-waste natural dye sources. As a member of the Dye Club, Laura enthusiastically shares her knowledge of natural dye pre-treatment processes and direct dyeing techniques, including eco-printing and bundle dyeing.
Miriam Singer grew up in Buffalo, New York, having attended Brandeis University, and earning her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art. Singer has shown work in galleries, alternative spaces, and numerous public spaces including with Paradigms Gallery, The Albright Knox public art program in Buffalo NY, James Oliver Gallery, The Philadelphia Airport and even bus wraps at the Navy Yard. Singer uses a combination of printmaking and drawing media to create her unique works on paper, and designs for public art projects. Singer lives in Philadelphia and currently teaches printmaking at Fleisher Art Memorial and is a member of the artist collective, Space 1026, where she often hosts Dye Club.
Michael Konrad is a Philly-based artist, educator, and home brewer. His sculptural work is inspired primarily by the built environment of the urban landscape. Using a combination of everyday building materials and repurposed waste items such as bricks, concrete, Tyvek, and plastic bags, he addresses the meaning of material and function using a low-tech aesthetic of creative reuse. Michael brings his three-dimensional problem-solving, knowledge of fermentation, and original libations to Dye Club.
Angela McQuillan is a Philadelphia-based artist and curator working at the intersection of art and science. Angela has a B.S. in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin, a B.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from Temple University, and a M.P.S. in Business for Art and Design from the Maryland Institute College of Art. A former member of the Little Berlin and Grizzly Grizzly artist collectives in Philadelphia, Angela opened Chimaera in 2022, a gallery specializing in art relating to biotechnology. Her work has been featured in prominent publications such as The New York Times, Forbes and SciArt in America. She brings her professional prowess and scientific methods to Dye Club.