Nowhere, 9.5”x 11”x 3” closed, (open detail 9.5”x 201”) Textiles Processes & Digital Media. Hand woven Jacquard textiles w/ embroidery, applique, natural dye, wool, silk & cotton fibers made while in residency at the Icelandic Textiles Center & PSU. Edition of 4. Accordion binding. Partially funded by RACC. Binding design and assembly by Portland Garment Factory for the exhibition Threads | Þræðir 2023.
Nowhere
Horticulturist and artist Anne Greenwood Rioseco created Nowhere - an edition of four fabric art books - to convey her sense of wonder at the complexity, interdependence, and beauty of constantly transforming ecosystems, both tiny and vast. The book chronicles the physiological characteristics of lichens channeling between the personal, the scientific, the philosophical, and the poetic, and Anne employs a layered visual narrative that conceptually mirrors these collective relations. The collaborations and ideas in the book unfold in its materials and construction; for example all the threads are dyed with plant or insect extracts and are then woven into the fabric. Anne cut up hand-woven Jacquard fabric for the base fabric of imagery in the book, and the fabric was then layered with appliquéd wool felt collage illustrations. She added hand-embroidered cosmological symbols to convey further information about the period of time in which the book was made. Each image thus consists of collaged layers: digital weave structures; photographs of fungus; hand-drawn text; wool felt pieces; patterns of migrating Arctic Terns.
Nowhere
-Reflects the power of solitude I have found in the natural world, while in Iceland making these weavings, and the overwhelming shared cultural experience of uncertainty, isolation, loneliness, anxiety and helplessness, felt within the recent Covid epidemic, and the subject of this book: lichen. While lichens are not widely recognized, they are almost ubiquitous in natural environments - everywhere and nowhere.
Horticulturist and artist Anne Greenwood Rioseco created Nowhere - an edition of four fabric art books - to convey her sense of wonder at the complexity, interdependence, and beauty of constantly transforming ecosystems, both tiny and vast. The book chronicles the physiological characteristics of lichens channeling between the personal, the scientific, the philosophical, and the poetic, and Anne employs a layered visual narrative that conceptually mirrors these collective relations. The collaborations and ideas in the book unfold in its materials and construction; for example all the threads are dyed with plant or insect extracts and are then woven into the fabric. Anne cut up hand-woven Jacquard fabric for the base fabric of imagery in the book, and the fabric was then layered with appliquéd wool felt collage illustrations. She added hand-embroidered cosmological symbols to convey further information about the period of time in which the book was made. Each image thus consists of collaged layers: digital weave structures; photographs of fungus; hand-drawn text; wool felt pieces; patterns of migrating Arctic Terns.
Nowhere
-Reflects the power of solitude I have found in the natural world, while in Iceland making these weavings, and the overwhelming shared cultural experience of uncertainty, isolation, loneliness, anxiety and helplessness, felt within the recent Covid epidemic, and the subject of this book: lichen. While lichens are not widely recognized, they are almost ubiquitous in natural environments - everywhere and nowhere.
Table of Contents image: No, Now, Nowhere, Here, -Re
Now: Speak In Color
-The text and image reference lichens as bioindicators: they are sensitive to atmospheric pollution such as nitrogen because they receive all their nutrients and water from wet and dry atmospheric deposition. In other words, lichens register the health of an ecosystem.
-The text and image reference lichens as bioindicators: they are sensitive to atmospheric pollution such as nitrogen because they receive all their nutrients and water from wet and dry atmospheric deposition. In other words, lichens register the health of an ecosystem.
Nowhere: To Lick, To Weave, To Braid, To Be Equal
-The text references found definitions of the word lichen from world languages, while the image illustrates translation and transformation: as found in nature- seasons, life cycles, death & rebirth.
-The text references found definitions of the word lichen from world languages, while the image illustrates translation and transformation: as found in nature- seasons, life cycles, death & rebirth.
Here: To Eat Around Itself
The text and image refer to each lichen as a chimera, that is, a free-living compound organism, a symbiotic species, composed of a fungus, a cyanobacteria, and an algae combined, eating itself slowly as it grows and lives long.
The text and image refer to each lichen as a chimera, that is, a free-living compound organism, a symbiotic species, composed of a fungus, a cyanobacteria, and an algae combined, eating itself slowly as it grows and lives long.
-Re (or Equal)
As a prefix, meaning “again” or “again and again” to indicate repetition, or with the meaning “back” or “backward” to indicate withdrawal or backward motion referring to the cycle of life.
As a prefix, meaning “again” or “again and again” to indicate repetition, or with the meaning “back” or “backward” to indicate withdrawal or backward motion referring to the cycle of life.
The illustrations and text images were all hand woven on a digital Jacquard loom while Anne was in residency at the Icelandic Textiles Center; the hand-embroidery and book construction were done while in residency at Portland State University; the images are hand-sewn into a black linen accordion binding fabricated by the Portland Garment Factory in Portland, Oregon. The wool, silk, Lopi yarn, and cotton fibers are all naturally dyed in madder, cochineal, indigo, Osage, and logwood, which comprises plant heartwoods, roots, leaves and insect bodies. This sculptural book was funded in part by the Regional Arts and Culture Council in 2023.