One of the rooms in Liz Collins' "Motherlode" installation at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum.
Renowned textile artist Liz Collins recently spoke to West Virginia University students and staff, as well as members of the public, about her life’s journey through art, fashion and textiles.
Collins was the featured speaker for this year’s Deem Distinguished Lecture series, which began 31 years ago and is funded by Patrick and Alison Deem. The program has brought internationally recognized contemporary artists and their work to Morgantown. As part of the series, the visiting artists give a lecture that is open to WVU students and faculty, as well as the public, and their art is on exhibition in the Mesaros Galleries at the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center (CCAC).
During her lecture, which was held Oct. 2 in the Bloch Learning and Performance Hall at the CCAC, Collins discussed her journey of using textiles as her artistic medium. Her mother taught her to sew when she was around 9 years old.
“As a young person, I loved fashion, and I loved textiles,” Collins said. “I found that through weaving and other kinds of ways of building fabric that I was able to express myself in ways that I couldn't find in other ways of making.”
Collins studied textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design from 1986-1991 and completed an internship at a silk factory in Italy. She then returned for her post-graduate education from 1997-1999. Shortly after, she launched her own fashion line, which she maintained through 2004. In 2003, Collins returned to RSID, this time as a teacher, where she served on the faculty until 2013.
For years, Collins made her own textiles and garments from scratch. She said handling fabrics was integral to her creative beginning, but as she transitioned into the world of fashion, she shifted from hand weaving her own materials to using digital designs and machine weaving to create the fabrics she needed to mass produce her looks.
This transition inspired “Knitting Nation,” a performative installation that showcased human labor’s interaction with industrial knitting machines. A group of people, each at their own machine, would gather in a space and work on their section of the material. The vibrant woven fabrics would then be used to create a large-scale piece of textile art. From 2005-16, Collins staged 15 iterations of “Knitting Nation” across the world.
When she moved fully into the world of textile art, she brought machine weaving with her, commissioning custom fabrics and knits that she then deconstructs for the final artwork. Collins’ exhibition “Raw Materials” in the Laura Mesaros Gallery at the CCAC features some of the bolts of commissioned fabrics and rolls of custom wallpaper that have been used, and will be used again, in her art.
Throughout her lecture, Collins referenced her creative journey and artistic evolution and explained her process, from sketchbook to commissioned textiles to finished art. Her talk largely centered on her mid-career retrospective “Motherlode,” which is on display at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum. Her work is also featured in “Woven Histories: Modern Textiles and Abstraction,” a traveling exhibition that finished its international tour at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
As part of her presentation, Collins showed images of her artwork from “Motherlode” and past installations and exhibitions. The pieces were characterized by a blend of natural and industrial influences, filled with jagged lines and concentric circles and bright colors and stark contrasts. The finished products ranged in size from a few feet to over 100 feet.
“I'm really into fiber art,” said Phoenix McDougal, an Environmental Soil and Water Sciences major and Digital Art and Animation minor. “I crochet and I knit and I use a knitting machine. It was really cool to be able to see large-scale installments and work on using textiles and fiber arts.”
“I am a big fan of just the color composition of all of it,” said Ayden Knaggs, a junior Game Design and Interactive Media major. “I really love how striking it all is.”
Knaggs also liked how, during the Q&A portion of the lecture, Collins described being challenged to create a textile only using white fibers and how that forced her to focus on the texture of the materials.
As much as Dirk Shoemaker liked Collins’ art, the Game Design major’s favorite parts were when Collins talked about her thought processes and her journey. “She described how hard it was,” he said. “You know, for a room full of people that are young artists, that's a good thing to hear. It's not easy, it's a struggle, ‘look how hard I fought to get here’ and it's assuring for us.”
After the lecture, attendees were invited to join Collins in the Laura Mesaros Gallery, where her “Raw Materials” exhibition is on display through Oct. 16.
Liz Collins' exhibition "Raw Materials" on display in the Laura Mesaros Gallery at the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center.
As the evening came to a close, Collins reflected on her visit to WVU.
“I don't teach anymore,” she said. “This is a way that works really well for me to engage with students and in college communities, and I can share my work and be that visitor who comes in with a fresh perspective and exciting work that inspires people.
“As a student, I really got a lot out of it when people came and visited and gave talks. Some people ended up being professional connections for me, so I'm paying it forward.
“Maybe one or two people feel very inspired by it or maybe the whole room does. I think it kind of opens up pathways of possibility for people. Someone might have a new idea about how they could live their lives based on some of the things I've said or have new ways of thinking.”
Collins said she hopes her lecture and her creative journey help students interested in multiple artistic areas understand that it’s possible to do more than one thing or to have different creative periods in their lives, reminding them that “you're not locked into life and one career path at all times.”
At least a few of the attendees heard her message loud and clear.
Ryleigh Horodyski, a senior dual major in Game Design and Psychology, took comfort in Collins’ lesson that “your art career doesn't end when the typical career does.”
“You can make art for substantially longer—as long as you can—and I think that's really important for creatives to remember,” Horodyski said.
“I think just one thing that resonated with me was that your journey as an artist is not always going to be linear,” McDougal said. “Sometimes it's just sort of luck of the draw, and you just have to keep working at it, and that it's an iterative thing that is never going to end.”
Visitors can see Collins’ exhibition and others in the Mesaros Galleries at the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and one hour prior to Discovery and Curiosity Series events at the CCAC.
For a full listing of Visiting Artist Lectures and Exhibitions and to learn more about the WVU School of Art and Design, visit artanddesign.wvu.edu.