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Melinda Watt

@melindalwatt

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Chair of Textiles, Art Institute of Chicago @artinstitutechi (All opinions are my own.)
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Studio Ruyee, warmly invites you to: Threads from the Desert A Celebration of Kutch Textile Arts Hosted at the Home of Linda Hillman Sunday, July 19th, 2026 232 S Euclid Ave. Oak Park, IL 60302 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm Join us for an intimate afternoon with three master artisans from the Kutch Desert of Gujarat, India. Where centuries-old textile traditions live on in a vibrant color and extraordinary craft. Meet the makers, hear their stories, and take a piece of this remarkable heritage home. Guest Speaker Melinda Watt Chair & Christa C. Mayer Thurman Curator of Textiles Art Institute of Chicago RSVP via text message to: Anita at (612) 814-5211 or Linda at (630) 240-8053
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Un abito d’oro in linea col tramonto. Che luce meravigliosa nell’appartamento arcivescovado ✨ A golden dress for the golden hour: stunning light in arcivescovado apartment ✨ https://casabarontini.it/appartamento-arcivescovado/ #light #goldenhour #summer #tramonto #luce
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Heartfelt thank you to the micro/MACRO Textiles ’26 seminar cohort for such an amazing, generous, and enriching semester. Our Saturdays together in the TRC have been a source of learning, curiosity, conversation, and community. We spent the semester looking closely, asking questions, working with our hands, and thinking across textiles, fiber, collections, conservation, science, art history, research, activism, curation, and everything in between… Yikes! A special thank you to our guest mentors (honorary micro/MACRO Textiles members), who helped shape our work and inspired us throughout the semester. Some favorite moments from our time together: Attending the “Embroidered Traditions from Morocco to Afghanistan,”lecture with a very attentive group (Adilah never more than six degrees of separation from Jerry Bleem 👀). Visiting the galleries, and looking closely. Learning cross-stitch from one of our special guests; others included learning about Dhaka (Bengal) muslin (lighter than air), DNA and textiles, Conservation, and, “On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival.” Amazing quilter Mhairi with her very good friend Stevie Wonder (by Ms. Dorothy Burge). Thinking about DNA and textiles, in the lab, and through the lens of material history, close-looking at a pig-shaped coverlet fragment [TRC, 102.33] with Juliana. Talia examining an example of tatreez from her family’s collection. Elisa examining an example of Xiaoshan lace and bringing her gifts of language to help interpret the characters. Mhairi documenting a crochet piece [TRC, 03.26] and looking closely at its fibers. Micah examining a tubeteika (cap) [TRC, 22.17], an object connected to her heritage. Adilah teaching us about Rwandan baskets [TRC, 25.2 and 25.08]. Juliana learns about Miao embroidery and collections. Mhairi helping us embrace the overlooked beauty and humor of kitsch in crochet. (Mhairi is your mother now, little ducklings). Talia reminding us to embrace the chaos. And Tommy taking the prize for his command, care, wisdom, and brilliance as TA. So grateful for the many ways this group approached textiles with attention, dedication, creativity, and care.
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Thank you all for a beautiful and meaningful run of “On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival.” This exhibition was shaped by many hands, many voices, and many stories. Textiles are a language that carry memory across time and space. These works remind us that textiles are not only materials, but living archives of our shared human experience, bearing witness to grief and loss, care and healing, life’s passages, and the persistence for dignity, and our survival. In bringing them together, they reminded us of something simple and profound: that even in loss, we remain connected. With deep gratitude— Thank you to Anne Wilson, Thank you to Nneka Kai, Thank you to L Vinebaum, Thank you to Isaac Facio, Thank you to Melinda Watt, Thank you to Janet Purdy. Thank you to everyone at the Art Institute of Chicago, Thank you to our community in Fiber and Material Studies at SAIC, Thank you to our extended network of contributors, and thank you for your support. This has been a gift to us all. May the threads of this work continue beyond these galleries. Work for peace. Be kind, and take care of one another.
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This has my longtime friend that I have not seen in years name written all over it. @melindalwatt
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CARE & REPAIR: Karen Hampton Textiles can become vessels of remembrance, carrying the memory of our ancestors in what we wear, keep, and pass down. In this gallery, we invite visitors to reflect on the loved ones before you, and how cloth can hold their presence. Ancestor’s Cry is the final work in Karen Hampton’s series Of the Ancestors. Dyed with natural pigments— including rock, soybean, and walnut—it was inspired by the large petroglyphs Hampton encountered while traveling through the hills of northern Nevada. Struck by their vastness and historical presence, Hampton embroidered motifs that pose a question: How might the ancestors who made them respond to human grief and the global destruction of land? This theme is symbolically reflected in the white flowers washing away at right in the artwork. Karen Hampton American, born 1959 Ancestor’s Cry 2017 Raffia cloth, hemp, dye, pigment, dye sublimation, indigo, and linen paper Collection of the artist www.kdhampton.com In this gallery, also see these works at www.artic.edu Talismanic Tunic, Mid–late 20th century, Djenné or Tombouctou, Mali Ref. number: 2023.3242 Child’s Tunic, 6th–8th century, Egypt Ref. Number: 1914.713 Statuette of a Woman, about 450 BCE, Boeotia, Greece Ref. number: 2014.969
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@yalebooks On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival Edited by Isaac Facio, Nneka Kai, L Vinebaum and Anne Wilson Contributions by Jerry Bleem, Valerie Cassel Oliver, Gustavo da Silva, Wafa Ghnaim, Jen Chen-su Huang, Cristian Koepfli, Alipio Melo, Sarah Molina, Maria Jose Murillo, Lucinda Pelton, Sharbreon Plummer, Jenni Sorkin, Barbara Teller Ornelas, Lynda Teller Pete, Cybele Tom, Melinda Watt, Danitza Willka and Folayemi Wilson 208 Pages, 9.00 × 10.50 in, 156 color + 14 b-w illus. Hardcover 9780300284089 Published: Tuesday, 11 Nov 2025 A journey through the rich histories of textiles that explores their significant cultural roles, from memorializing lost loved ones to resisting oppression. From ancient Egyptian shrouds to medieval relics, textiles have played both functional and symbolic roles in rituals of death across time and place. Featuring funeral hangings, mourning samplers, garments, and many other textiles and fragments, along with works by contemporary textile artists such as Nick Cave (b. 1959) and Angela Hennessey (b. 1971), this book highlights how these objects help people negotiate experiences of loss, grief, healing, and survival.   With over seventy textiles dating from antiquity to today, On Loss and Absence brings together examples from cultures and traditions around the world. Close-up photographs provide an intimate look at the wealth of artistic and historical information embedded in their intricate details and painstaking techniques. In four key sections—Death and Grief, Transition of Realms, Care and Healing, and Resistance and Survival—artists, conservators, educators, and scholars offer their in-depth perspectives on select objects and their context. Contemporary practitioners, including the Noqanchis collective of Andean weavers and Navajo weavers Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas, provide insight into the enduring legacies of Indigenous textile arts. A behind-the-scenes look at textile conservation examines preservation techniques in the larger thematic context of care and survival.
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An oldie but goodie! Had to repost one of my favorite essays that I wrote about @gioswaby for @peabodyessex in 2023. During this exhibition, I made a commitment to love all versions of myself (even the underside) and always show love to my homegirls! 💌 #gioswaby #artswriting #freshup
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Now on view in Gallery 109, Tadao Ando Gallery —from the 21st of October 2025 through the 2nd of February 2026—an installation, part of the exhibition On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival, on view in Textiles Galleries 57–59. Hasegawa Sōya 長谷川宗也 Japanese, 1590–1667 Willow Bridge and Waterwheel About 1650 Pair of six-panel screens; ink, color, gold, and silver, on paper Kate S. Buckingham and Frederick W. Renshaw endowments, 2002.365.1–2 Rebirth of the Nun Anyō Early 18th century Japan Pair of six-panel screens; ink, color, and gold, on paper Purchased with funds provided by the Joseph and Helen Regenstein Foundation, 1963.268–9 Man’s Mourning Jacket (Haori) About 1940 Japan Rayon; plain and gauze weaves (yoko ro), resist dyed and stenciled Gift of Mary V. and Ralph E. Hays, 1999.649 Woman’s Mourning Kimono (Mofuku) About 1935 Japan Silk; discharge dyed, painted, embroidered Gift of Mary V. and Ralph E. Hays, 1999.621 Visit www.artic.edu for more information on these works. #lossandabsence
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@hyperallergic Art Review by Lori Waxman 🙏 (link in our bio) “On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival, on view at the Art Institute, should be visited by anyone who has ever touched a piece of fabric, grieved, or had a spiritual moment, which is to say everyone.” “Drawn primarily from the museum’s significant holdings, it presents an astonishingly diverse array of more than 100 objects, from a Malian talismanic tunic to a massive silk scroll depicting the death of the Buddha, to a tondo woven of Velcro and velvet fuzz by Angela Hennessy in 2014. It is perhaps unsurprising that all four of the co-curators of this profoundly moving and deeply original show — Isaac Facio, Nneka Kai, L Vinebaum, and Anne Wilson — are themselves fiber artists.“ Lori Waxman
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Levitating with our queen, Nneka Kai, @nneka_kai on Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival. Links in our bio. #lossandabsence #graditude #griefjourney
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Available now @aicmuseumshop and @yalebooks A journey through the rich histories of textiles that explores their significant cultural roles, from memorializing lost loved ones to resisting oppression On Loss and Absence Textiles of Mourning and Survival Edited by Isaac Facio, Nneka Kai, L Vinebaum and Anne Wilson Contributions by Jerry Bleem, Valerie Cassel Oliver, Gustavo da Silva, Wafa Ghnaim, Jen Chen-su Huang, Cristian Koepfli, Alipio Melo, Sarah Molina, Maria Jose Murillo, Lucinda Pelton, Sharbreon Plummer, Jenni Sorkin, Barbara Teller Ornelas, Lynda Teller Pete, Cybele Tom, Melinda Watt, Danitza Willka and Folayemi Wilson From ancient Egyptian shrouds to medieval relics, textiles have played both functional and symbolic roles in rituals of death across time and place. Featuring funeral hangings, mourning samplers, garments, and many other textiles and fragments, along with works by contemporary textile artists Dorothy Burge, Nick Cave, Yanira Collado, Nneka Kai, Karen Hampton, Angela Hennessy, Noqanchis (Alipio Melo, Danitza Willka, and Maria José Murillo), Carina Yepez, Michael Olszewski, and Barbara Teller Ornelas. Distributed for the Art Institute of Chicago Exhibition Schedule: Art Institute of Chicago (September 6, 2025–March 15, 2026)
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