May 16 – June 24, 2014 • Textile Center Pat O’Connor Library Gallery
Jackie Abrams creates contemporary baskets that explore forms, colors, and materials. This collection explores her study of bias plaited baskets, a technique she will be teaching in her upcoming workshop at Textile Center.
I am a maker. I create forms that reference women’s bodies, capturing their experiences and stories. These stories shape and are contained by these figurative vessels, vessels that carefully hold the content of their lives.
My pieces speak of the importance of the women in my life, of their strengths and sorrows, their growth and joys. My craft development work, with women in Africa, has had a profound influence on my work and on my life. I have learned to simplify things, to let the forms and the materials speak for themselves.
I work in collaboration with each piece as it is develops. Each one can stand alone, or in support and unity with a community of women. Each one has a story to share, a role in the world.
I have been creating baskets for almost 40 years, using and adapting well-practiced skills. I work intuitively with my materials: silks and cottons, archival paper, wires, sand, threads, buttons, encaustic wax, and acrylic paints and mediums. Their colors and textures inform the vessels I create.
Please join us on Thursday, May 29 at 7:00 pm for a lecture by Jackie about her work, her process and her journey as a basketmaker.