2024 McKnight Fiber Artist Fellowship Exhibition
Artist reception at Textile Center: Tuesday, January 21 at 5 pm
Art Speaks with Amber Jensen, 6 – 7 pm
(Due to inclement weather, Rick Kagigebi will not be joining us for the receptions or presentation on the 21st.)
Artist Reception for Rick Kagigebi at Gizhiigin Arts Incubator: Tuesday, March 18, 4 – 6 pm (new time!)
701 East Jefferson Ave, Mahnomen, MN
A McKnight Fellowship information session, from 3 – 4 pm, will precede the reception at Gizhiigin. Please join us to learn about all of the Fellowship programs offered in the McKnight Artist & Culture Bearers Fellowship program.
Ceremony Blankets, Rick Kagigebi
January 14 – February 15, 2025 • Textile Center
February 21 – May 21, 2025 • Gizhiigin Arts Incubator
Rick Kagigebi (Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe) is a blanket maker whose mural blankets, created as ceremonial gifts, are shaped by every aspect — from the sketch to the fabric selections, sewing, and tying — to hold storytelling significance.
Artist Reception for Rick Kagigebi at Gizhiigin Arts Incubator: Tuesday, March 18, 4 – 6 pm, 701 East Jefferson Ave, Mahnomen, MN A McKnight Fellowship information session, from 3 – 4 pm, will precede the reception. Please join us to learn about all of the Fellowship programs offered in the McKnight Artist & Culture Bearers Fellowship program.
@rick_a_blanket_maker | facebook.com/p/Rick-a-blanket-maker
Exhibition statement:
A blanket is a stopped moment in time. I make appliquéd mural blankets where a story is being told as I see it or is conveyed to me. Elements such as direction, movement, time, space, 3D layering, and Ojibwe culture are used. I begin with a single idea, transferring my sketch onto large, taped-together sheets of tag board. I’ll think about a person that the blanket will go to – what can be provided through the blanket in order for this person to have a good life? I translate the story into fabric, thread, and yarn with the aid of HeatnBond, stabilizer, and zig-zag stitching. The design may shift while I’m working, making me wait until I know what changes to make. The blankets don’t define me; they define the people they are made for.
Blankets are a core element in Indigenous cultural life – used both as a robe through the day and to sleep at night. Blankets are shelter, warmth, an expression of generosity, a place of safety. Babies are swaddled and protected in their first blanket. Spouses are wrapped together at a wedding ceremony. Oftentimes, a blanket will be given with tobacco within the ceremonial community as a sign of respect to the spirit helpers who are being called on; and to show one’s personal investment or sacrifice of how much they want healing and a good life.
Within ceremony, blankets are sent out to carry healing to distant communities. Blankets are imbued with medicine and prayers for long, good lives. When we die, we are again wrapped in a blanket as we begin our journey home.
I don’t know anyone else who does what I do. For many years, people have told me that the blankets I’ve made helped them. Many commissioned blankets are personal blankets. People will wrap themselves up in the blanket when they need help.
Why do I do what I do? Because the people are worth doing it for.
A History of the Heart, Amber Jensen
January 14 – April 13, 2025 • Textile Center
Amber Jensen combines the labor-intensive processes of handloom weaving with her own improvisations to alter surface and form, drawing stories out of thread and cloth in an ongoing search for sense of place, self, and belonging.
@amberm.jensen
ambermjensen.com
Exhibition statement:
I am a weaver, painter, and teacher who combines traditional techniques with bespoke improvisations, drawing new and different stories out of thread and cloth with each piece I make.
My journey into textiles began nearly two decades ago with the creation of one-of-a-kind backpacks that have since evolved into complex and individual pieces of wearable art. Devoted to my daily art practice, I create weavings and paintings embellished with stories and symbols inspired by nature and the through-line traced from ancestors’ blankets to my own work today.
Whether people share the same language or not, woven cloth holds history and is a means of communication. Weaving is a language that’s almost as old as time. It’s been a way to bridge cultural divides, share unique experiences, and learn about one another’s histories. Methodically and patiently, I piece together these traditions that embrace my love of European-American woven coverlet patterns and fine-detailed sampler embroideries. Mixed with my own inventions, techniques, and color choices, everything finds its way as it spills out onto the cloth. The work gains meaning as these pieces are patched together into a new whole.
Acts of reciprocity, cross-cultural sharing of my weaving practice, and learning from others in our shared Minnesota home invigorate my passion for this medium. In creating new work for this exhibition, a commitment to working at the loom each day–slowly and methodically building new cloth from a rainbow of wool yarn on hand–guided the process. Each day brought new feelings and experiences to the loom, and these feelings were journaled directly into the cloth. As I reached the end of a project, unfurling the cloth from the loom and pinning it next to myriad pieces made over the years began an understanding of what it could become. Older pieces found their way into newer pieces, back and forth, until it felt just right.
In essence, the work in all its bits and pieces, is the making of my life.
See more about the 2024 Fellows HERE
Founded on the belief that Minnesota thrives when its artists and culture bearers thrive, the McKnight Foundation’s arts and culture program is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the country. Support for individual working Minnesota artists and culture bearers has been a cornerstone of the program since it began in 1982. The McKnight Artist & Culture Bearer Fellowships Program provides annual, unrestricted cash awards to outstanding mid-career Minnesota artists in 15 different creative disciplines. Program partner organizations administer the fellowships and structure them to respond to the unique challenges of different disciplines. Currently, the foundation contributes about $2.8 million per year to its statewide fellowships. For more information, visit mcknight.org/artistfellowships.
