Earth Texture

Artist / Maker Priscilla Kepner Sage (American, b. 1936)

Date1965

MediumFabric, fiber, batik, and bones. Hand stitched.

Dimensions60 x 40 in. (152.4 x 101.6 cm)

ClassificationsSculpture

Credit LineGift of the artist and Charles Sage. In the Art on Campus Collection, University Museums, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.

Object numberU2012.361

Status

Not on view

Collections

CultureAmerican

Label TextThe layering in the work of this period becomes almost obsessive in Earth Texture (1965). The work seems to test the edge between decorative impulse and deeper, perhaps darker, emotional reservoirs. In these two works layers of threads over batik fabric collage create some kind of botanical insect trail or mutating hybrid organism. Lee Bontecou’s work of the early 1960s also comes to mind. This abstract biomorphic space suggests the potential relationships between sculptural form and the life sciences that Priscilla’s early work seems to embody. This work has a dense and animated linear motif that seems to capture the physical processes of growth and decay. The fact that Priscilla develops work both intuitively and analytically also seems to mimic nature’s order and chaos. In some ways one might link her process and forms to morphology, which is “that branch of biology that tries to explain the mechanics by which life takes shape” (4).

PeriodMid-Century

Locations