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FRAGILE CONNECTIONS: Thread Collages by Cidne Hart

Name: FRAGILE CONNECTIONS: Thread Collages by Cidne Hart
Start: 2020-09-12T00:00:00-07:00
End: 2020-10-17T23:59:59-07:00
Location: Avenue 50 Studio

Free

Avenue 50 Studio Presents
Fragile Connections
Thread Collages by Cidne Hart

Exhibition Dates: September 12-October 17, 2020

On view virtually at avenue50studio.org
Or by appointment at 131 N. Avenue 50 | Highland Park, CA 90042
For questions or to schedule an appointment:
(323)258-1435 | avenue50studio@gmail.com

MASK REQUIRED. PLEASE WEAR A MASK.
No admission fee. Free parking available behind the building (entrance parallel to the train tracks), walking distance from Highland Park Metro Gold Line Station, and off Metro & Dash Bus lines.

About:
“We find ourselves caught in a fragile time. Political events are unbelievable. The physical earth is being destroyed. Isolation lulls us into looking out for only ourselves. But Nature, good people, stories and music call out to us. We have to stay connected. We have to do what we can to survive and to help others. Our common threads are fragile, but they are all around us, joined in every direction.

Fragile Connections is an exhibition of Thread Collages I have pieced together with fabric from other work I have created. My drawers are full of cotton, linen, and silk with images and colors I have applied myself. I have torn them into scraps and sewn them back together with colorful threads.

The pieces you see here have scraps of eco prints, cyanotypes, and fabric dyed with natural dyes. Some have been torn before and some after they received the images. Some scraps have been dyed a second time. Each finished thread collage was sewn on my sewing machine after attaching the disparate scraps to a water soluble stabilizer which maintains a gap while it is stitched together. Separate, but connected. Fragile, but tough.

Processes Explained
Eco Printing – Also called botanical printing, this is a more recent technique that I have been doing for two years. It is an off-shoot of natural dyeing which uses plant material instead of chemicals to create dye colors. I gather leaves, lay them on mordanted fabric, and roll them around a pipe. I bind them tightly with string, and steam them for two hours. Some leaves will create an almost-photographic image. The result is always a surprise, and the process is an endless artistic experiment. (Click here to create your own DIY ECO prints!)

Cyanotype – This photographic printing process was discovered in 1842. I combine two chemicals and brush them onto paper or fabric. They are light sensitive, and when exposed to UV light, they produce an image. I expose them in my backyard in the sun, under a film negative for a photographic image or with plant materials or letters laid directly on the sensitized cloth. I have been making cyanotypes for about twelve years. They are an archival blue image and can be toned with natural dyes.

Water Soluble Stabilizer – I could not sew unconnected scraps together without a base to attach them to which will later disappear. The product I use is also used for embroidery and quilting. I discovered a few examples of this process being used for artwork early this year. I developed my own style right before the current pandemic, and all of these pieces were made since then.”

-Cidne Hart

Cidne Hart learned photography and graphics at Liberation News Service in New York City in the 1970s. After making her way across the country, she raised a daughter and worked in printing companies.

She never attended an art school, but she has taken many art classes such as printmaking, letterpress, and alternative photographic processes. She never plans to stop taking classes. She learned some newer processes, such as eco printing, online.

Constantly experimenting when tackling something new, she always tries to combine the techniques she loves into new structures.

A resident of Highland Park for 33 years, she has shown her work in local galleries such as Avenue 50 Studio, Future Gallery, and MorYork Gallery, and in other parts of California and Hawaii and Wisconsin. She has had solo shows in Los Angeles and France.