OPEN Your Heart, Widen Your EYES, and Let the FABRIC SPEAK!
03/13/2025 02:04PM ● By MARIE EDINGER
Picture Above : Eryn Sheehan (b. 1990, active Burlington, VT) Rubber and Ribbons, 2024. Fabric, bicycle inner tubes, ribbon. © Eryn Sheehan
Most think of art as something personal—how it makes you feel and what it makes you think. Considered less frequently is how the artist was feeling during the piece’s creation. A new exhibition on display at the Fleming Museum , through a partnership with the Howard Center Arts Collective, lays bare the heart and soul of the artists themselves. The new exhibition, Let the Fabric Speak!, shows off textiles personal to artists’ life stories.
The Fleming Museum of Art opened to the public in 1931, though its collections began at the University of Vermont years before. Founded as a teaching resource, faculty use the displays as teaching aides, and students use them to augment their studies. To date, the museum still acquires new pieces, frequently rotates works in its galleries, and brings in new exhibitions every semester.
Amjed Jumaa, The Road to Freedom, 2024 Acrylic
paint with fabric, paper scraps Courtesy of the artist
© Amjed JumaaRachel Moreau, manager of marketing and communications for the museum, says its current team is intent on keeping things fresh and interesting and finding new ways to engage with the community. “Our aim is to create a museum for all, where everyone is welcome,” Rachel explains. “Part of that is expanding to include groups that were not traditionally shown in our collections and exhibitions.”
That’s where the Howard Center Arts Collective comes in. Kara Greenblott, coordinator of the Arts Collective, says she read about Fleming Reimagined, the museum’s directive to become a more responsive institution with a dedication to inclusivity, “and I thought, ‘Well, perfect match.’”
Kara explains that the Arts Collective identifies as an alternative arts program, promoting wellness, self-esteem, and dignity by creating opportunities for artists affected by mental illness and substance use. The Collective’s members encounter a lot of daily challenges and, as a result, often face isolation. Having a community of like-minded, creative individuals is a saving grace for so many.
Amjed Jumaa, Lydia Littwin, Sarah Brunkhorst, and Pamela Champagne. The pieces by Lydia and Pamela are participatory artworks with more than ten artists contributing in total and were made during Open Studio times.
“One of the most important benefits of participating in the Arts Collective is the sense of belonging and community that we share,” Kara says. “Art is healing, therapeutic, and allows us to express our voice. And to me, that’s the very obvious part of why we exist.
But our artists [embrace it] because of the friendships and community we’ve formed.” Both Rachel and Kara feel the partnership between the Fleming Museum of Art and the Howard Center Arts Collective is invaluable. The two entities have worked together before, but for this exhibit, the emphasis is on the personal stories shared by the artists, which they hope will prompt questions from and connections with visitors.
“How does artwork personally connect to your own story? What is the artist trying to say?” Rachel says by way of an explanation for the exhibit. “Walking through the gallery, you may find an unexpected connection with someone you have never met.”
Let the Fabric Speak! started with what Kara calls a fabric swap. The members of the Arts Collective came into the studio with pieces of fabric or textiles from their lives, explaining the story behind them. One woman brought in a wedding veil, another, a portion of a curtain.
“They talked about their childhood home, the curtains that hung in the living room, and the daily lives that those curtains witnessed,” she says. “If you walk into the exhibition today, you’ll see pieces of those fabrics incorporated into much of their artwork.”
Installation view of Let the Fabric Speak!, Photo by Lee LeMay
The artists in the Collective took those pieces and their stories and crafted their own creations, sometimes incorporating fabric from their own lives as well.
“[It’s] a commentary on community and how we depend on one another,” Kara says. “We spend time with one another through good times, and depend on one another through the more difficult times of anxiety, depression, or relapse after a period of sobriety.”
Let the Fabric Speak! is joined by two other featured exhibitions at the Fleming this spring. First, an intimate portrait series by photographer JuanCarlos González, Vermont Female Farmers brings focus to the daily life, labor, and passion of contemporary women farmers, and second, Rooted in Nature: Collecting Histories at UVM. Curated from across many eras of the museum’s collections, the exhibition explores how artists engage with the natural world and how collections shape knowledge over time. Let the Fabric Speak! will be on view through May 17, 2025, but both the Howard Center Arts Collective and the Fleming Museum of Art consider theirs an ongoing collaboration, which will probably result in future exhibitions.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF FLEMING MUSEUM OF ART
FLEMING MUSEUM OF ART
HOWARD CENTER ARTS COLLECTIVE
https://howardcenter.org/community-education/howard-center-arts-collective/
