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    Salvador Dominguez Confronts Identity and Labor Through Woven Pipe Cleaner Vessels

    Images © Salvador Dominguez, shared with permission

    Salvador Dominguez Confronts Identity and Labor Through Woven Pipe Cleaner Vessels

    March 18, 2025

    ArtCraft

    Jackie Andres

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    “I was among the first in my family to go to college,” artist Salvador Dominguez says. “Years after graduating, I began to realize the biggest challenge was going to be sharing the work I make with those closest to me.”

    When art is so deeply intertwined with identity, a profound irony can form when trying to share it with loved ones who haven’t had access to the same resources or lessons in Western art theory and history. Even when the work itself is rooted in shared culture and family connection, how do artists bridge this gap?

    The Chicago-based artist confronts this question in a series of hand-woven vessels titled Mano de Obra. Paying homage to a nostalgic vibrancy from his upbringing in southern California and Mexico, the brilliant colors within Dominguez’s work serve as cultural markers. Memories of vividly painted houses and colorful statues inside corner stores and carnicerias, or butcher shops, guide the artist’s use of color and pattern, each component tethered to his sense of identity.

    Pipe cleaners—which are fairly accessible and easily recognized by both children and adults—proved to be a clear choice as Dominguez contemplated different materials to work with. Weaving each slender, fuzz-covered wire into functional vessels greatly alters the value of the material in a fascinating way and evokes a familiar environment in which the artist was raised, where trade and craft were used interchangeably as currency.

    Recently, Dominguez has begun to teach his mother, Silvia, the weaving techniques he developed with pipe cleaners. He shares:

    Her labor within domestic life often went unseen, but her imagination came alive through craft and embroidery. By involving her in this creative process, I not only honor her contributions but also try to maintain our connection, transforming her labor into a visible and valued part of the work. I remain curious about how this collaborative effort has the potential to bridge the gap between generations, particularly since we live in separate parts of the country.

    To stay inspired, the artist also collects a slew of domestic items. From his mother’s hand-embroidered tortilleros to household textiles like pillowcases and table runners from Indigenous artisans from Mexico, Dominguez’s collection of precious goods influences form, pattern, and palette in his own work. Though he has encountered these articles since early life, turning to them for research has established a new, unique relationship with the familiar objects.

    Dominguez is anticipating a group exhibition in Antwerp, Belgium this May with de boer gallery. Find more work and updates on the artist’s website and Instagram.

    Photo by Ian Vecchiotti. Courtesy of the artist and ANDREW RAFACZ, shared with permission

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    Marilou Schultz Weaves Computer Processor Patterns in Traditional Navajo Tapestries

    “Replica of a Chip” (1994), wool mounted on wood, 120 × 146.1 centimeters. Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA. Image courtesy of American Indian Science and Engineering Society, shared with permission

    Marilou Schultz Weaves Computer Processor Patterns in Traditional Navajo Tapestries

    November 14, 2024

    ArtCraftDesignHistory

    Kate Mothes

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    What does Intel’s Pentium computer chip have in common with Navajo textiles? More than you might think.

    For artist Marilou Schultz, the ancestral practice of weaving melds with an unexpected contemporary source of inspiration. Merging analog loom methods with the patterns found on computer processor cores, Schultz entwines the histories of the Navajo people and modern technology.

    Detail of Intel Pentium core processor die

    In the late 17th century, Spanish colonists introduced a breed of sheep called the Iberian Churro to the American Southwest. The Diné—known also as Navajo—who had lived in the Four Corners region for hundreds of years, embraced shepherding and wool production, eventually developing a unique breed still managed today, the Navajo-Churro.

    Along with an aptitude for raising sheep, Diné weaving traditions flourished. Anthropologists surmise that the craft was adopted from the neighboring Puebloans sometime in the 12th or 13th centuries. As time passed, Navajo styles and techniques evolved, rising to popularity first among Plains Indian tribes and then, in the 19th century, with Europeans and non-Native tourists who sought out blankets and rugs for their remarkable craftsmanship and geometric patterns.

    Schultz, a mathematician and teacher in addition to her studio practice, was commissioned by Intel in 1994 to make “Replica of a Chip” as a gift to the American Indian Science & Engineering Society, an organization still active today that focuses on advancing Indigenous people in STEM. As computer historian Ken Schirriff details in a thorough blog post about the piece—especially its highly accurate layout—the work highlights the alluring patterns of a trailblazing piece of technology.

    Detail of “Replica of a Chip”

    The first Pentium processor was released in 1993. About the size of a fingernail, the die—the material on which the processor is fabricated—contains more than three million transistors. These microscopic switches control the flow of electricity to process data. Today, some high-powered chips contain billions of transistors.

    Schultz faithfully transferred the die pattern to a tapestry, employing delicate loom techniques and working from a photograph of the chip. Unlike traditional Navajo textiles, the geometries in “Replica of a Chip” are far from symmetrical.

    She used yarn pigmented with plant dyes, and the cream-colored regions are the natural shade of Navajo-Churro wool. Schultz told Schirriff that the weaving process was slow and deliberate as she referenced the image, completing about one to one-and-a-half inches per day. The painstaking and methodical process of sending warp through weft creates a beautiful tension between the instantaneous results we associate with digital tools today.

    Intel Pentium processors

    “Replica of a Chip” was the first in a series of weavings Schultz created based on computer circuits, including one known as the Fairchild 9040. While not as common as the Pentium, the Fairchild company is notable for its employment of Navajo workers in its operation in Shiprock, New Mexico—within the Navajo Nation—in the 1960s and 1970s.

    Part of a government initiative to try to improve the economic conditions of life on the reservation, Fairchild was incentivized to open a manufacturing center in Shiprock. “The project started in 1965 with 50 Navajo workers in the Shiprock Community Center manufacturing transistors, rapidly increasing to 366 Navajo workers,” Schirriff says. Eventually, the company “employed 1,200 workers, and all but 24 were Navajo, making Fairchild the nation’s largest non-government employer of American Indians.”

    In 1975, the Fairchild-Navajo partnership took a dramatic turn that spelled its demise. With the semiconductor industry suffering from the crippling U.S. recession at the time, Fairchild laid off 140 Navajo employees in Shiprock, which today still has a population of only a little more than 8,000 residents. The layoffs were a blow to the community. A group of 20 locals, armed with rifles, responded by occupying the plant for a week.

    While the episode eventually ended peaceably, Fairchild decided to shutter entirely and move its operation overseas, further compromising trust in corporate interests on Navajo land.

    Women’s roles in manufacturing and assembling electronics are often under-recognized. Schultz taps into ideas around gendered labor, visibility, and the slippery notion of “progress.” Through the lens of Navajo history and craft, she addresses paradigm shifts in technology, economics, and social change through the language of fiber.

    You can see “Replica of a Chip” in Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, which continues through March 2, 2025.

    Detail of “”Replica of a Chip”

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    Eight Pairs of Woven Shoes Fit for Cranes Roost in a Field of Pebbles

    All photos by Ahina, courtesy of the artist and Real DMZ Project, shared with permission

    Eight Pairs of Woven Shoes Fit for Cranes Roost in a Field of Pebbles

    October 17, 2024

    ArtCraftNature

    Grace Ebert

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    If a white crane were to choose a pair of boots, would he gravitate toward knee-high lace-ups or balance his talons in yellow tabi stilettos?

    Young In Hong fashioned a collection of shoes with these long-legged birds in mind. Titled “White Cranes and Snowfall,” the playful sculptures are made from woven sedges and nested in a shallow field of pebbles, intertwining references to avian life and endangered craft traditions.

    Based in Bristol, Hong visited Korea in the winter of 2023 and witnessed a flock of rare cranes migrating to the demilitarized zone dividing the peninsula. “The once blood-stained DMZ has now become an ecological paradise for the cranes,” she shares. “When nature is left alone it can replenish its lives, and when we as humans observe other species more carefully, we can learn something from them that alters our way of being in the world.”

    Researchers estimate that in the seven decades since the zone was established, about “1,200 plant species, 83 fish varieties, 51 different mammals, and numerous birds, insects, and microorganisms” have thrived in the area, many of which were previously endangered or threatened.

    Observing the birds inspired the latest series in Hong’s growing collection of avian footwear. Each references jipsin, flat sandals woven from straw and largely worn by farmers and the working class throughout Korea. Affordable and widely available, the shoes would wear down quickly—a long day’s walk could burn through a pair—and people across the socioeconomic order knew how to make them. Straw is biodegradable, too, making jipsin naturally sustainable.

    To learn the craft practiced for generations, Hong began working with Choong Kyung Lee, a straw-weaving master from Asan in 2021. Together, they created numerous projects, including shoes fit for a baby elephant, giraffe, kangaroo, heron, gorilla, and bear. “For me, the collaboration with Lee was a journey to open up my eyes towards natural fibre weaving, a part of the history of Korea that has not been thoroughly written about,” Hong shared.

    For “White Cranes and Snowfall,” the artist pulled out specific personalities to inspire each design rather than thinking of the birds as anonymous entities. Displayed together, the sculptures become a stand-in for community and gathering—and perhaps a cheeky and yet urgent plea to imagine oneself in another’s shoes, even if those shoes belong to another species. The artist adds:

    For me, fictionalising the collective white cranes, and visualising them through humorously designed shoes, is to remind us of the fact that birds are like us, expressing tastes and preferences, also by having individually different characters and personalities.

    “White Cranes and Snowfall” is on view through November 7 at Secession in Vienna. Two of Hong’s textile works are also on view this month as part of the 7th Changwon Sculpture Biennale, and she’s currently preparing for two solo shows, one opening at Art Sonje Center in May and another at PKM Gallery in September. Peruse an archive of her works on her website and Instagram.

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