Huh?

In 2001, I was still the chair of the Surface Design Studio at the Southwest School of Art and Craft. Complex Cloth was selling well, and I was getting invitations to teach in other locations around the country. I struggled with leaving a program that was near and dear to my heart, but my job had turned more administrative than artful and I finally decided to go solo. It wasn’t an easy transition, but it did feel right.

Almost ten years later, I ran into a former colleague at a dinner party. “Jane,” he said, “I’ve always wanted to tell you how sorry I was that you got fired.” I looked at him in disbelief. Fired? Huh.

I called up a close friend the next day. “Hey,” I said, “Did I get fired from the Craft Center?” She laughed. “Of course you did, Jane!” She paused and continued, “Everybody knew that.”

Huh.

I had the same feeling this week when I read the headline to an article describing my current exhibition and visit to the University of Louisville. The headline in the Louisville Courier-Journal read Repairing Textile’s Tattered Reputation. Huh?

The article was fine. Elizabeth Kramer, the reporter, was fun to talk to, and she definitely got it. Where the headline came from, I don’t know. But seeing that headline certainly made me stop and think. I’ve been thinking about it all week. Is this just another indication that textiles are getting a bad art rap?

The corner of the world I occupy is lively, inventive and challenging. Just as it never occurred to me that I'd been fired (gee, I could have collected unemployment...) it has never occurred to me to think of my textile world as one with a tattered reputation.

On the other hand, I talked with a guest at my lecture the other evening about just this issue - why textiles aren't more MAINSTREAM - and we agreed that it wasn't technique or quality or message as much as it was marketing.

What can we do about that?