Golden Flight III

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

Date1978

MediumFabric and fiber. Machine and hand stitched.

Dimensions52 x 36 x 36 in. (132.1 x 91.4 x 91.4 cm)

ClassificationsSculpture

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

Object numberU2012.364

Status

On view

Collections

CultureAmerican

Label TextGolden Flight III (1978) Mylar fabric, fiber, machine- and hand-stitched, 52" L x 36" W From the silver apples of the moon to the golden apples of the sun. Like the other exuberant Flight sculptures, Golden Flight is a simple form in metallic gold and silver with primary color accents and intricate, open-stitched interior spaces. At the time, I was thinking about flight and the forms of kites, wind socks, sails, flags, of whooping cranes and migrating geese. The fabric parts are stuffed with polyester fiberfill and the lightweight sculpture is suspended from one point. It is designed to move with the air currents, allowing one to look through the threads. As the colors of the open stitching overlap, they create optical illusions of new colors, for instance, yellow passing blue and creating green. In idle moments, I absent-mindedly fold paper napkins, perhaps while sitting at the table after dinner visiting with friends. Some of the napkin folding actually generated ideas for future work. An easy and obvious form to make with a napkin is a fan, which I remember doing obsessively during class in third grade. The fan shape, when it continues, turns into a spiral. The spiral form was the basis for my next five years of work During the transition period from the Flight series to the Spiral series, I started to experiment with disperse dyes. These dyes are painted on paper and heat-transferred with an iron to polyester fabric. When transferred to the silver Mylar fabrics I was then using, the disperse dyes took on a luminous, iridescent quality that opened up a myriad of color possibilities. I could mix colors as freely as if I were using watercolors. However, the dye on the paper changed to a more brilliant color when it was ironed onto the silver fabric. There was also the hazard of too much heat melting the fabric. Experimenting with dispersed dyes and a variety of fabrics was fun because there was always a surprise. Eventually, I got the dyes under control and started work on many variations of the spiral form. Friends gave me books about spirals in nature — leaf formations, pinecones, even cabbages. Scientists were eager to tell me about DNA spirals and shapes they saw under the microscope. In truth, I really felt I had invented the spiral myself. After all, I had been working on the idea since third grade. In 1978, my first big commission was for the lobby of the Hoover State Office building in Des Moines, Iowa. For the first project funded by the Iowa Art in State Buildings program, I built Tinctorial Spiral (144"L x 48"W x 4"D). This sculpture, as were all the Spiral sculptures, was constructed from silver Mylar polyester fabric, dyed with disperse dye covering a pad of polyurethane, five-feet long by two-feet wide. Several of these were connected to create a continuous flat pad that was then pleated to create the spiral form and suspended from one point. The variations of the spiral form seemed limitless. Perhaps I had found the secret of the universe.

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