University of New Hampshire Museum of Art
Paul Creative Arts Center
Durham, New Hampshire;/br>
October 31 through December 14
History and culture, archeology and anthropology...we use complex tools to both tell and decipher the human story. And what we wear, our dress, its art and fashion, complement the story. Whether we unveil or swaddle our children, robe or unmask ourselves, expose or camouflage how we live, our clothing reveals more than it hides about us.
Alice Spencer’s artmaking in the last half-dozen years is inspired by the way clothes make the wo/man across cultures.
Spencer and her husband, Richard, are
avid travelers. As they’ve made their
way around the world, they’ve collected
the clothes and textiles of other
cultures. Thirty years, 20 countries
and over 70 unique hand-made articles
form their collection. Embroidered
panels of Ecuadorian shaman’s robes,
pieced silken underthings from China,
Indonesian breast wrappers, and feltedwool
saddles from Mongolia have all
provided Spencer with compositional
ideas and inspirations.
I spoke with her as she was traveling in Morocco. “Two days ago we were up
exploring mountain villages, looking at Berber rugs and woven goods,” she
explained, “not to buy for commercial purposes, but to understand better
the places and people we are visiting. Wherever we’ve gone, we’ve sought out small village workshops and places where people are doing this work by
hand.” They enjoy the exchanges. “We’re always finding a deeper way
to understand the people we’re visiting, the culture we’re involved
with.” Observing the actual making of clothes and textiles is something
Spencer loves, but also enjoys the milieu, the “social and psychological
way the clothes are made by people working together.” Clothes, for
her, can communicate identity; they convey both individuality and conformity, and can represent social hierarchies and other complex ways
particular cultures function.
Spencer has logged enough miles to see “how patterns and ideas have
moved through the globe and how patterns, shapes and forms evolve
through time.” She even recognizes organic forms of ancient civilizations
in the curves of Mickey D’s golden arches and the design work of
Georgio Armani. In her recent work, it’s this actual and cultural layering
that has served as her foundation
for compositions. Spencer transforms
three-dimensional functional objects
into two-dimensional representations.
The colors and visual elements of
Spencer’s clothing collection are in
a sense, cultural excerpts. “I like to
extract the visual and conceptual
frameworks to work with,” taking
elements from many sources. Complex
geometries, organic shapes, repetitive
patterns are her raw materials and,
she said, “I work with the images and
layers to get them to coalesce visually.”
A work becomes a multicultural
representation; its “layers can
represent global sensibilities.” Viewers
can feel the cultural undertows in the
work, their pulls and currents. Depth
is created with sand-textured gesso
underpainting. Strings of circles
“create beading as a formal element,”
and the “strings” infer draped
necklaces and adorned bodies. There
are inferred curves, ruffles and folds.
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