Surface Design Association

Guest Editor 40th Anniversary Summer Issue

I was honored to be the guest editor of the summer issue and enjoyed developing content, working with the authors, staff, and editor Marci Rae McDade.

Your copy of the Summer Issue, Making our Mark: SDA at 40, is available with membership to the Surface Design Association, http://www.surfacedesign.org/

Angela Hennessy’s Untitled (floor mat) (detail) 2016, velcro dots, 42″ in diameter is featured on the front cover. Great articles and more excellent visuals inside.

Excavated Pattern, Oregon College of Arts and Crafts

At the Making our Mark conference in Portland, Oregon, August 3-6, 2017, I returned to a theme I have explored recently and installed 13 digitally cut vinyl patterns, my interpretation of Indian block-printed textiles found in Egypt. Ruth Barnes, as curator of the textile collection at Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, undertook the task of cataloguing well over 1,000 textile artifacts from the Newberry Collection dating from the 12th to the 16th century. This exceptional collection and scholarly document is the foundation for this artwork. The fragments on average are typically under 15” in length and width, yet reveal complex patterns, captured through digital tools to reintroduce them to conference attendees.