Written by: T Kinkley, Art and Culture Writer
APR. 2 – Over the month of March, Olin Fine Arts Center’s art exhibit hosted artist Patricia Miranda. Miranda, for this exhibit, focused on monumental textile sculptures and installations that were built using community stories. Her pieces draw attention, many of them being made out of recycled and repurposed pieces of lace and linen. Many of the bright colors in her work are created by dying lace with cochineal insect dye.
Miranda first posted her work of dying the fabrics during the pandemic. Due to this, she received and still receives pieces of textile from people all over the world.
“These donations often arrive with letters, stories, and pictures of the family and maker,” said Miranda in her artist statement that hangs with her work. “I recognized this as a historical community archive, and founded The Lace Archive, an ongoing library of thousands of pieces of donated lace and family histories.”
“These donations often arrive with letters, stories, and pictures of the family and maker,” said Miranda in her artist statement that hangs with her work. “I recognized this as a historical community archive, and founded The Lace Archive, an ongoing library of thousands of pieces of donated lace and family histories.”
Within the gallery, she had eight pieces hanging. Every piece in the gallery included a textile donated piece of some sort, some including other items such as gold, paper clay, and PVC pipes.
The biggest piece in the exhibit, “Where Is the Serene Length,” was created in 2021. It is displayed on the cards that are given out in the Olin Fine Art Center library, as well as being featured on the posters. The piece is made of donated, found, and repurposed vintage textiles, vintage books, muslin, twill tape, thread, pins, steel hoops, wood armature, and PVC pipes. The piece took up a majority of the art gallery, sitting directly in the middle. The rest of her pieces lined the walls.
Many of Miranda’s other pieces are similar to art forms we are used to seeing. We saw a few framed canvasses and a few unframed as well. There were two pieces that include gold, “Ex-Votos: Graphite” and “Ex-Votos: Glass.” “Ex-Votos: Graphite” features a vintage 22-karat and 13.25-karat gold leaf that had been inherited. “Ex-Votos: Glass” features vintage 22 karats and 23 karats that were similarly inherited.
Miranda, with the history of lace, believes that the sphere of women’s influence and economic autonomy is intertwined with textile history. Lace has always been important to the history of women, and it has been visible in the connections that surface in Miranda’s project as a whole.
“This feels urgent in a moment when women's bodies continue to be in peril of legal and social control by governmental and religious institutions and individuals.”
“This feels urgent in a moment when women's bodies continue to be in peril of legal and social control by governmental and religious institutions and individuals.”