The other day, I was sitting in the TAC library as a group of young students came pouring into the Oak Knit studio for an afternoon class. Several of them skipped, danced and ran between the two long tufted ropes hanging from AIR resident, Alex Goldberg’s, installation in the middle of the studio, sending the ropes swinging. Each of these kids took obvious joy in interacting with the work and experiencing the passageway it created. This is what Alex’s work does; it activates already-existing spaces, creating new dimensions. Alex employs textile techniques (bobbin lace, knotting, spinning) and creatively selected materials (packing tape, piping rope) to create elegant installed works that may serve as both fine art and interior design elements. I sat down with her to learn more about her techniques, the concepts behind her work, and the experience of spinning wool on the subway.
On her design background: ”In May, I graduated from the interior design graduate program at Pratt. I first got interested in textiles at Pratt in regards to soft architecture, but being at TAC is really my first full exploration in textile design. Last year I completed a design thesis in which I created a design for a nomadic hotel. The idea was that the hotel was designed to work with elements that exist in all different parking garages. The design could be packed up and shipped and moved to any parking garage. The hotel’s existence relied on constant elements that exist in most parking garage structures. Textiles were involved in the sense that there were tent-like hotel rooms that were partially soft and partially hard, and then also a lot of the walls within the larger hotel environment were textiles because that made it easy to pack up. There are elements of that project that remain in my work at AIR. My work now is much more decorative and conceptual, but the concept runs through the work in some ways.”
“When I was in design school, I realized that my favorite part of the process was using my hands, and that’s when I decided to come to TAC. In some ways I feel like I make my work because I have to. There were so many times in my life when I would try to avoid being an artist. I would go to work during the day and then I’d come home and have to use my hands to be at peace with myself and, in a way, to be in touch with nature and history. I’m making pieces that will hopefully have a positive effect on a space and somebody’s experience in that space.”
On the concept behind her work: ”The general concept of my current work is that in a built environment the viewer or inhabitant would feel some connection to nature and history. I want to remind people of our natural world and the importance of nature and of the handmade. I’m creating handmade objects that cast shadows that create a fantasy of the natural world. In a lot of ways, it’s a commentary about what’s happening to us in an increasingly technological world. Are we still using our hands? Are we valuing the idea of using our hands as a tool for thinking and a tool for making? Also, what’s happening with natural materials and synthetic materials in a technological world? More than just the end product, the reason there’s so much repetition in all of my pieces is to evoke how the handmade is connected to nature. There’s so much repetition in nature, too. And I believe that repetition with our hands does positive things for our psyche. As our technological ability increases, we are not required to use our hands as much, and unfortunately we are not choosing to.”
On selecting her materials: ”My materials come from a lot of different sources. Sometimes I’ll find shadows in nature and think that I want to create something like that with my hands, and then I’ll look for the material, but I’ll also just go hunting for materials and start there. I always have a million things around me for inspiration, and then the pairing will come to me. This weekend I was up in Connecticut on a hike and I found this natural object that was really prickly that sort of looked like a pincushion, and so now those two things are coming together in my mind. Of course, through testing, it’ll all change a little bit. My process is a conversation between the natural world and the handmade world. We meet in the middle somewhere, which becomes neither natural nor handmade, really. In my head, the two become blended until the work isn’t in either place.”
On bringing the handmade into the MTA: ”I started spinning yarn on the train because my commute takes an hour and a half, and it takes a long time to spin enough yarn to make a piece of lace. After a while, I realized what a performative behavior it is, because everyone on the train is looking at me, and some people don’t even know what it is that I’m doing. The people who do know what it is get really excited, so it has become this teaching moment. I meet people on the train now every day because of it, and I’ve even taught people how to spin on the train. I’ve been filmed on the train. It’s become this really interesting performance piece, in a way, to teach people about textile history. I don’t really know how that fits into the rest of my work, but it’s interesting. It’s really just naturally happened out of not having enough time in my day. But it’s something I think about a lot, because it’s such a contrast to everyone using their phone on the train. I’m doing something so tactile and it feels so foreign.”
On lacemaking: ”Bobbin lace is very much a part of my practice. It has this history and culture, and it brings to the forefront this idea of human nature and enacting repetitive processes with our hands. Prior to bobbin lace I was doing all these projects related to patterns in nature. Bobbin lace is different because the patterns have been created by humans. A lot of my work is exploring how things change over time. How are the patterns that we create starting with us, coming from human nature, changing over time? When the person who created the pattern passes, how does that pattern live on? So I’m doing these projects, blowing them up and manipulating them and using different materials, to try to figure out what happens to patterns. And when I say patterns, I mean the actual bobbin lace patterns, but I also mean our behavioral patterns and patterns in society.”
On creating “parasitic” works: ”The draping gesture in my work has been with me for a really long time. I see my work as parasites to existing architecture and I think that that developed from an interior design perspective, and also how nature overgrows on itself. Creating pieces that are parasitic makes them feel a little bit more nomadic, a little bit more ephemeral, like they could be moved. They make a light impact on what exists. The word parasite, I think it has a duality to it. There’s a question of leeching on or adding on, which one is it. I want that feeling to come through in my work: are we leeching or are we adding?”
You can see more of Alex’s work on her website, and on Instagram. Join the whole AIR Cycle 7 crew on Saturday, May 14th during AIR Open Studios! Our residents will open their studios to the public from 5:00-7:00 PM, at our Brooklyn location.
