Artist: Rachel Brumer of Seattle, Washington, USA
Interview 118
Interview curated and published by Gareth Bate and Dawne Rudman.
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Rachel Brumer was born in Oakland, California, USA. She graduated from Mills College with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies, and worked as a professional dancer in Oakland, Seattle and New York, including a short stint with Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey Circus. Upon retirement from dance, she went back to school and studied American Sign Language and holds a degree from Seattle Central Community College in Interpreting.
Her artwork is in public collections around the country including the Seattle Art Museum, the Tacoma Art Museum, the Museum of Arts and Design, Harborview Hospital, Swedish Hospital, Legacy Emanuel Hospital, the University of Washington Special Collections, the King County Art Collection and the Seattle Arts Commission, including others. Exhibitions include, Fiberart International, Quilt National, Visions, Seattle Art Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, Gregg Museum, Ross Art Museum, Whatcom Museum, Texas National, Bellevue Arts Museum and solo exhibitions at Grover/Thurston Gallery, Seattle, Washington and Friesen Gallery, Sun Valley, Idaho, among numerous others.
Awards include, Fiberart International, Quilt Visions, Artist Trust Fellowship and Gap Awards and Quilt National. She was also awarded a residency at Jentel, Banner, Wyoming. Teaching experience includes two residencies at Mission Creek Correctional Facility in Belfair, Washington and the Seattle Public Schools. Rachel's website
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Artist Rachel Brumer. |
Tell us about your work?
My present work is fibre based. The concepts and ideas I begin with are translated into 2 and 3 dimensions, from individual and discrete objects to room sized installations and pieces with community participation. I deeply enjoy the labour of the work, whether it be dyeing fabric, discharging that piece of fabric, overdyeing it, and then applying imagery and embroidery, or preparing hundreds of boards for Van Dyke printing.
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Installation view, Partial Floor Plan of a World, detail, 76 x 61 x 1.5 inches, Board, van dyke printed and discharged, hand dyed and painted fabric embellished with French knots, drawn with dye stick, glued, stiffened, mounted with beads. Photo: Mark Frey. |
How did you start working in fibre?
The first piece I made was to commemorate a friend who had recently died of AIDS. It was an art quilt with community involvement. I contacted friends of Daniel's and asked them to contribute a piece of fabric that held meaning and memory, and I used these scraps to surround the main body of the piece. After it was completed, the art quilt was sent around to individual friends who kept it for as long as they liked, and then sent it on to another friend. This served as a way for the group of people to stay in touch as well as remember Daniel.
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Installation view, Partial Floor Plan of a World, 76 x 61 x 1.5 inches, Board, van dyke printed and discharged, hand dyed and painted fabric embellished with French knots, drawn with dye stick, glued, stiffened, mounted with beads. Photo: Mark Frey. |
Where did you go from there?
The thread of memorial and commemoration has been a key element through my 22 years of making art. Some examples of the memorials and commemoration based work are: an installation based on the life of a couple who run a dairy farm in Washington, (10,482 Days of Dairiness), an installation based on the French Children of the Holocaust, (Cover Them), a series of 14 quilts using epitaphs from gravestones of women buried in cemeteries in the Northwest, (Marker Series), and Memory's Main Gate, using the book form with imagery based on family history. Long Time Passing, I and II are quilts with flower imagery, and conceptually both pieces are commemorating and mourning war deaths. Large Regional Still Lives was a project where I asked friends to create still lives with personal objects that held memory or meaning. Together, we set up a still life of these objects, and I photographed them, and then eventually made a Van Dyke print.
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Installation view, Partial Floor Plan of a World, 76 x 61 x 1.5 inches, Board, van dyke printed and discharged, hand dyed and painted fabric embellished with French knots, drawn with dye stick, glued, stiffened, mounted with beads. |
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Installation, Partial Floor Plan of a Country of a World, dimensions variable. Hand dyed fabric, ripped and torn, glued, stiffened, mounted on wall. Photo: Mark Frey. |
Why did you choose to go into fibre art and how did you decide on this medium?
I began my creative life as a professional modern dancer and worked in a number of dance companies in Seattle and New York. After retiring I trained as a sign language interpreter and then about 22 years ago started making quilts. I had an interdisciplinary degree from Mills College in dance, art, music and drama, but mostly focused on dance during that time, although I did do a lot of ceramics. I can't say why fibre is attractive and seductive to me, it just is.
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Installation view, Partial Floor Plans, dimensions variable, viewer replacing small floor plan of mine with card by her. Photo: Mark Frey. |
What other mediums do you work in, and how does this inform your fibre work?
I work primarily in fibre, though within the medium, I use photography, (Van Dyke printing) silkscreen, stiffening and waxing, board, drawing, rubbing, dripping, dyeing and found fibre. I make quilts, stiffened and waxed fibre, and fibre in three dimensions.
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Installation, Krakow Fragments, VII, VIII, V, 8.5 x 9 inches, 14 x 14 inches, 12 x 12 inches, Hand dyed fabric, van dyke printed, discharged, altered dyed lace, mounted on board and stiffened and waxed. Photo: Mark Frey. |
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Krakow Fragment, III, 11 x 11inches, Hand dyed fabric, van dyke printed, discharged, altered dyed lace, mounted on board and stiffened and waxed. Photo: Mark Frey. |
Have any specific historic artists had an influence on your work? Who are they and what has been their influence?
Many mornings I start my day by looking at the watercolours of John Singer Sargent. I swoon over the colours and subject matter. It's completely unlike any of the work I have ever done, but there it is - I look at it and am more ready to start my work than had I not looked at it. Also, Morris Graves and the Northwest mystics is work I look at over and over.
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Krakow Fragment, IV, 12 x 12 inches, Hand dyed fabric, van dyke printed, discharged, altered dyed lace, mounted on board and stiffened and waxed. Photo: Mark Frey. |
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Krakow Fragment, VII, 8.5 x 9 inches, Hand dyed fabric, van dyke printed, discharged, altered dyed lace, mounted on board and stiffened and waxed. Photo: Mark Frey. |
When you were a child, did you want to become an artist?
Yes, I knew from a young age that art was an avenue for expression that I would follow. My early training was in dance. I started my training in ballet, which was a very disciplined practice, and later in college I made a transition to modern dance, with a strong background in technique, and an appetite for exploration. Dance and working with a variety of choreographers was a good training ground for visual art.
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Installation, Quire: Book of Findings, 160 x 210 inches, Hand dyed fabric, van dyke print, drawn and rubbed with dye stick, embellished with French knots, fabric stiffened and then waxed, full metal hinge in center. Photo: Mark Frey. |
Tell us about your studio and how you work:
I have a kind of lousy basement room, but it comes with a separate darkroom for Van Dyke preparation, a washer and dryer, and a garage for larger work. I have made major pieces there, but would love a better and bigger studio. I hesitate to take time away from creating work to reconfigure. I work full days, every day, and some evenings and weekends now that my children are grown and on their own. I take time completely away from work at various times in the year.
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Installation, Cover Them, Arlette Montelmarcher 2/11/41, 91 x 91, Paulette Sommer 2/11/26, 75 x 76, Mathilde Dziubas 2/11/28, 67 x 74, Hand dyed fabric, drawn, rubbed with dye stick, van dyke print, hand applique, machine pieced, hand quilted, batting exposed. Photo: Mark Frey. |
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Installation, Cover Them, Showing stack of utilitarian children's quilts to be given away, 1 hanging, with instructions. Photo: Mark Frey. |
Please explain how you developed your own style.
I dedicated my early studio years to studying the art quilt movement that began in the 60's, and as my own practice progressed, inquiry led me to continue work in textiles, including art quilts.
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Installation, Cover Them, Paula Jonap 2/11/25, 81 x 94, Hand dyed fabric, van dyke print, drawn with dye stick, machine pieced, hand quilted, batting edge exposed. Wall of names from French Children of the Holocaust, by Serge Klarsfeld, pages brown printed. Photo: Mark Frey. |
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Annette Dress 2/11/31, 73 x 82, Hand dyed fabric, silkscreen, van dyke print, machine pieced, hand quilted, batting edge exposed. Photo: Mark Frey. |
What specific contemporary artists have influenced your work?
Robert Wilson, the theater director who along with Philip Glass and Lucinda Childs as choreographer, created Einstein on the Beach, which was one of the most influential pieces I've encountered. I danced in the piece in the 80's and that experience has shaped how I look and create art. Roy Hargrove, the jazz musician is another example of a contemporary artist whose work I admire and turn to for inspiration. His work is so nuanced and rich, and those are two qualities I strive for in my work. The artists at Creative Growth, a workshop for artists with disabilities is somewhere I turn to look at vibrant and bold visual descriptions of life. I admire the work of Thomas Hirschhorn, the Swiss artist working in Paris, for the great scope of his work, the community engagement, and sheer outrageousness. Swoon, the street artist, Ursula von Rydingsvard sculptor, and Petah Coyne, sculptor are also artists whose work I try to have influence my work. Antonio Tàpies, the Catalonian artist is someone whose work I studied and studied over many years.
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Sarah Kurc 2/11/28, 68 x 70, Hand dyed fabric, van dyke print, silkscreen, machine pieced, hand quilted, batting edge exposed. Photo: Mark Frey. |
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Esther Licharz, 2/11/30, 73 x 82 inches, Hand dyed fabric, van dyke print, silkscreen, embroidery, machine pieced, hand quilted, batting edge exposed. Photo: Mark Frey. |
Are there any fibre artists are you interested in?
I think the world of Dorothy Caldwell's work. She is a quilt maker whose vision has stayed fairly narrow and has developed with sensitivity and study. I follow Elena Herzog's work. She deconstructs rugs and bedspreads on walls, and I find her work is visually compelling and mysterious. Josh Faught, assistant professor at California College of the Arts, is another artist whose work I admire. It's messy, and deals with contemporary issues.
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Fragment XIII, 25 x 23 inches, Hand dyed fabric, van dyke print, embellished with French knots, machine pieced, stiffened and waxed. Photo: Mark Frey. |
What role do you think fibre art plays in contemporary art?
I've noticed in recent years that artists not known for working in fibre are turning to it. As the world becomes more and more digitally based, people long to see the human hand.
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Fragment V, 25 x 23 inches, Hand dyed fabric, van dyke print, silkscreen, drawn with dye stick, embellished with French knots, hand pieced, stiffened and waxed. Photo: Mark Frey. |
Can you talk a bit about the commercial viability of fibre art?
I have found some commercial success with some of my work. I think there is a market for great work - whatever the medium. I have different strands of work too - some for gallery exhibits, and others for non-commercial spaces where the work will never be sold. Cover Them, an installation of art quilts and children's quilts to be given away, and Slumber, the Nights, an installation of diminutive beds and light are two examples of non-commercial work. Also, Partial Floor Plans, where I made very small pieces, and invited viewers to make a drawing of a floor plan from their memory or imagination, and then trade their work for mine. The piece changed in the course of the evening from mostly my work to a work of mostly the public. A few months later, I remounted the piece with the first iteration and a new version next to one another.
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Fragment VIII, 35 x 23 inches, Hand dyed fabric, discharge, van dyke print, drawn with dye stick, stained with ink, hand pieced, stiffened and waxed. Photo: Mark Frey. |
What are you working on now?
Last summer I had a show at the Friesen Gallery in Sun Valley, Idaho, and I continue to make work based on those ideas or what I am researching at the time. For example: the history of writing, illuminated manuscripts, asemic writing, and the power of communication. I'm also incorporating more colour into some of the work now, though still with a very limited palette.
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Large Regional Still Life, 60 x 72 inches, Hand dyed fabric, van dyke print and discharge, van dyke print, hand pieced, hand quilted, raw edge binding. Photo: Mark Frey. |
What interests you about the World of Threads festival?
Highlighting artists who use fibre in innovative and meaningful ways supports the creation and study of the field!
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Least Lightness, 70 x 68 inches, Hand dyed fabric, silkscreen, reverse applique, hand applique, machine pieced, hand quilted. Photo: Mark Frey. |
Is there something that you would like us to know about you or your work that we have not covered?
In 2010, I started work as an artist in residence with Keeping the Faith, a non-religious arts program, serving women at Mission Creek Correctional Facility in Belfair, Washington State. Pat Graney, the choreographer, started the program almost 20 years ago. A team of artists, including a writer, choreographer, visual artist and sign language interpreter work for several months with a group of women and the project culminates with a performance for the public, the families of the women, and other inmates. After years of isolated studio practice I found this to be a supremely satisfying experience, and one that buffets my belief in the power of art, and non-verbal experience. I will be continuing this work in spring of 2015.
I read a lot, both fiction and non-fiction. Often times a passage or fragment of a sentence will interest me and I will jot it down for future reference, almost like a sketch. A couple of examples of these are Wind, a species of air, and Forest Bathing. These will definite be the germs for new work in the future.
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Coral Pollen Pearls, 60 x 60, Hand dyed fabric, silkscreen, drawn and rubbed with dye stick, embellished with French knots, hand applique, machine pieced, hand quilted. Photo: Mark Frey. |
Do you have any upcoming shows?
This winter I will be in a group show at Patricia Rovzar Gallery. This is a gallery I have just started working with. I will also have work at the Museum of Northwest Art in La Connor, WA, in a show called Accreted Terrain, opening this October.
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