Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of speaking about the work of my friend and colleague, Manuela Gonzalez.
Manuela’s piece Rosa Mística is featured in Beyond Memory: Arts & Minds in the Moment, an exhibition currently on view at the gallery and offices of The Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. Manuela is a Teaching Artist for Arts & Minds, an organization that offers art programs for people living with dementia and their caregivers. I am proud to be a Senior Educator working in the same place, part time.
Born in Medellín, Colombia, Manuela immigrated to the United States in 1997. Her work is deeply personal, the patterns that appear throughout her art are replicated from family photo albums — what she calls “a memory lapse.”1 She also brings fabric-manipulation techniques onto her canvases: weaving, sewing, and smocking, practices she watched her mother and abuelita perform while growing up.
This is exactly why her work resonates so completely with me. I too received this kind of “aesthetic training” 2— growing up with a Puerto Rican mom who sewed and knitted at every turn. I took on that mantle myself, learning to sew and reconstruct clothing, and I now make mini collages using the tools of the dressmaker: sewing patterns, thread, and fabric.
And yet, I sometimes struggle to call myself an artist — because the materials I work with aren’t “traditional” in the way paint, palette, and brush are considered traditional. Manuela’s work challenges this directly. It questions the hierarchical European construct that places fine art above craft, as if one is more worthy of contemplation than the other. But fabric, needle, thread, and loom are the artistry tools of our ancestors. The Maya weavers. The ancient Andean knotting tradition known as quipos. The Puerto Rican lacemaking tradition of the early 20th century called mundillo. These are among the oldest and most sophisticated art forms in the world — and I was worried I wasn’t using “traditional” materials?
Manuela’s work contests the fine art/craft divide by taking techniques typically found on a dress or a rug and placing them on a wall — elevating textile work to the same plane as a painting in a museum or gallery, and inviting us to contemplate it, interrogate it, and ultimately honor it, along with all those who made it.
Her work also challenges the gender hierarchies embedded in art history, which associate grid-like abstract compositions with male artists3 while overlooking the women who have always used geometry in their weaving and quilting art, — women like our mothers and abuelitas. Art history was happening right before our eyes, inside our own homes. We had artists raising us before we ever stepped foot in an academy, and they were our matriarchs.
It fills me with joy to be part of such a rich textile lineage — thread running through our veins like blood. Studying Manuela’s work taught me to see and name this, and for that I am forever grateful.
Gracias, Manuela.
To learn more about Manuela Gonzalez’ work, visit her website.
Sources
1. Jennifer Pfaff Smith. How Artist Manuela Gonzalez Crafts Dynamic, Textural Pieces, https://www.mtnspace.com/news/how-artist-manuela-gonzalez-crafts-dynamic-textural-pieces
2.Patchwork: Manuela Gonzalez, Esteban Ramón Pérez, & Micheal Two Bulls, https://brooklynrail.org/2021/02/artseen/Manuela-Gonzalez-Esteban-Ramn-Prez-Micheal-TwoBulls-Patchwork/
3. El Museo del Barrio, https://elmuseo.org/past-exhibitions/estamos-bien-la-trienal-20-21/manuela-gonzalez/