Sachi Yanari-Rizzo, Curator of Prints & Drawings
Rowland Ricketts: Invisible Forces includes two distinct bodies of work: Zurashi/Slipped and Unbound. The weavings in Unbound relate to Rowland Ricketts’ interest in pre-Civil War era coverlets. In fall 2023, the artist studied the early American weaving collection at the National Museum of American History through a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship.
Ricketts was initially drawn to coverlets because of their use of indigo, but Ricketts became fascinated by what he refers to as the “dissonance between their imagery and materials.” Designed with eagles, courthouses, and other patriotic symbols and colors, the coverlets reveal a complex history. Although beautiful in design, these signs of freedom are contradictory to the lives of enslaved labor used to grow and pick the cotton to make the weavings on lands taken from indigenous communities.
To provide further insight into Rowland Ricketts’ work, the following are the artist’s responses to questions about the Unbound series.
Two distinct bodies of work seem to make up the Unbound series. The smaller, plaid patterned woven coverlets were created on a 16-harness analog dobby loom; whereas the three larger weavings were made on a TC2 digital Jacquard loom. Can you discuss how the character of each loom affected the creation of these bodies of work?
The smaller works were woven on a 16-harness loom which, while allowing for some complexity, is still quite limited when it comes to coverlet weaving. Working on this type of loom, the yarns can only be broken into 16 different groups to create patterns whereas the Jacquard loom allows each individual warp yarn to be lifted or lowered. This creates infinite possibilities when it comes to designing. Using the 16-harness loom I was able to work with historical geometric coverlet designs – stars specifically – and with the Jacquard loom I was able to borrow designs from 19th century “fancy” coverlets which were woven on punch card Jacquard looms.
I understand that a source of inspiration for you is fabric samples from 18th century textile pattern books. Would you please expand on this?
I was interested in these simple checks and plaids because they were integral to the slave trade in the 18th century. I used these patterns to make the “ground” cloth in the smaller weavings because this history is foundational to our nation, yet we don’t really see it or address it—it’s just there in the background and is generally ignored.
In Unbound, Series 2, No. 1 and Unbound Series 2, No. 4, why is there an empty frame?
The woven works are all mounted on linen stretched on frames quickly built from inexpensive cedar. I added an empty frame next to the mounted weavings—accidentally at first, but the empty frame left me with the overwhelming feeling of sadness that I experience in the spaces behind big-box stores or strip malls—the spaces where deliveries are made and trash is discarded—the space where the façade of our consumer “culture” is lifted and the harsh reality of its emptiness is exposed. Those spaces also mimic the architecture of frontier towns and remind me that I’m just living in the extended aftermath of Westward expansion.
In Favorite Objects with Everyday People there is a series of ones and zeroes. I thought this may be a nod to how the Jacquard loom’s punch card system was viewed as a precursor to the computer. Please discuss the use of binary code in the background. Also, why is the eagle depicted upside down?
Like the other large weavings, this one was informed by my research into 19th century coverlets and antebellum US history. In reading Daniel Walker Howe’s What Hath Got Wrought, I was struck by the parallels between the 1820s and today, in particular the communications revolution. Then, it was (partisan) newspapers that were able to spread their perspectives quickly throughout the entire country.
Today, we have social media in which individuals can speak directly to millions of followers. At the same time, in the attention economy, the algorithms give more clicks to greater outrage, which has spurred on the political divide we experience.
In What Hath Got Wrought, Howe quotes James Madison’s 1822 letter to W.T. Barry applauding Kentucky’s legislation to establish public education as saying, “Learned institutions ought to be favorite objects with everyday people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty & dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.” When I looked up the entire letter, I realized that it was slightly misquoted, and instead of everyday people it was in fact “every free people.”
For this show I stuck with the first. The zeros and ones are the quote above translated into binary code that underlies computing, the internet, social media, etc. In the attention economy, binary code is the pollution of our day, filling our brains with distractions, outrage, etc., and turning our attention away from the everyday-ness of our neighbors, communities, etc. The eagle is upside down because it’s been choked in the toxic plumes of our binary pollution.
In Eagles and Stars I understand that the white yarn hanging on the sides was unwoven. Did it resemble Favorite Objects with Everyday People before it was unwoven?
Yes, originally the work looked a lot more like Favorite Objects. I put it out in our greenhouse for 6-7 months to fade and then carefully unthreaded each individual wool weft.
Why did you choose to use paper yarn in many of your woven coverlets? Did you dye all the paper yarn as well as the wool?
I was really influenced by Sven Beckert’s book Empire of Cotton when I read it years ago. I am paraphrasing here, but he pointed out that paper was a technology that enabled the creation and global expansion of futures markets, which in-turn drove the expansion of cotton production (i.e. the expansion of land expropriation and slavery) in the early-mid 1800s, the same time as the coverlets I’ve been studying were being woven. This is one part of the reason that I wanted to weave with paper.
The other reason is more practical and specifically for the faded work Eagle and Stars. The linen paper yarn that I’m weaving with fades if not neutralized after dyeing, so it was a perfect base for fading and then unweaving to create a ghost image. (I’m still hoping to eventually fade Favorite Objects, but it looked so good when it came off the loom that I didn’t want to just yet, although my secret hope is that it will fade through exhibition). I dyed all of the yarns in all the work (other than the ones I left white).
In art museums, we don’t usually want textiles to fade. What is the significance of fading in your work?
The first work I completed with fading marked the time it takes me to make the dye: On the day that I planted indigo seeds in 2015 (March 25) I put the dyed cloth out in my greenhouse for exposure, where it sat for the 280 days it took to grow and process that year’s crop—until January 5, 2016. When I opened them up, the faded cloth felt like photographic exposures, and they embodied a beautiful contradiction: In capturing the time required to make the dye, the color itself is lost. At the same time, that loss isn’t really a loss; it’s more akin to breathing: there’s an exchange as light, air, and life are inhaled by the cloth and the color is slowly exhaled into the surrounding environment.
More recently I’ve been using fading as a sort of memory embedded into the cloth. The process I’m using in the Unbound weavings is akin to a contact print: I weave the cloth using traditional coverlet weaving techniques which conveniently weave a pattern yarn into the plain cloth ground. After exposing the weavings for at least 6 months, I can unweave the pattern yarn so that I’ve just got the plain weave ground, but it still has the memory of the pattern that was woven into it. To me, it creates a ghost-like feeling, as though we are haunted by the patterns of our history well after their time.
Rowland Rickett’s installation and exhibition are on display at FWMoA through September 1st.