Striated Straw
Object NameTextile Sculpture
Artist / Maker
Priscilla Kepner Sage
(American, b. 1936)
Date1962-1963
MediumFabric, fiber, bleach, and dye. Machine and hand stitched.
Dimensions80 x 35 1/2 in. (203.2 x 90.2 cm)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineGift of the artist and Charles Sage. In the Art on Campus Collection, University Museums, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.
Object numberU2012.359
Status
Not on viewCultureAmerican
Label TextOnce Priscilla moves to Ames, Iowa in 1962 with computer-expert husband Charles, early urban architectural skylines give way to an architecture of body and earth. The warm-hued textured fabrics layered with heavily stitched lines in Striated Straw (1962–63) and Butterburr (1963) are like aerial views of a creatively planted, visibly growing garden. Both use embroidery on a macrocosmic scale organically layered over a collage of intensely warm, highly textured, geometric fabric shapes. They are really drawings in the sense that the threads are moving lines and gestures —an EKG reading meeting a seismographic printout. It was an exciting time of change in Priscilla’s life and that comes through in the work.
PeriodMid-Century
Locations
- (not entered) Iowa State University, Brunnier Main Storage
Object Name: Textile Installation
Priscilla Kepner Sage
2007
Object number: U2007.69