Part Tapestry, Part Friendship Bracelet: Weavings by Alicia Scardetta

Above: includ­ed in Coor­di­nate Disregard

This past week­end, I went to the open­ing of Coor­di­nate Dis­re­gard at the Ter­rault Con­tem­po­rary in Bal­ti­more. There, I saw the work Brook­lyn-based fiber artist Ali­cia Scardet­ta, who I’ve been fol­low­ing on Insta­gram but had­n’t before seen her col­or­ful weav­ings in per­son. And let me tell you, they are awe­some. Intri­cate and jubi­lant, they com­bine a vari­ety of weav­ing tech­niques and are “part tapes­try, part friend­ship bracelet.”

To pro­duce these metic­u­lous pieces, Ali­cia uses frame tapes­try looms and cre­ates para­me­ters for each weav­ing. Through this, she explores the pos­si­bil­i­ties and lim­i­ta­tions of the “grid struc­ture that forms woven tex­tiles.” The process isn’t unlike illus­tra­tion. In both fields, there are guide­lines you must oper­ate with­in, and part of the chal­lenge is fig­ur­ing out how to let your artis­tic voice shine.

If you’re local to Charm City, make sure you check out Coor­di­nate Dis­re­gard. It’s up until Sep­tem­ber 26 and in addi­tion to Ali­cia, includes work by: Ran­dall Lear, Elis­sa Levy, Gabriel Luis Perez, and Cur­tis Miller. Plus, it’s curat­ed by my pal Amy Boone-McCreesh, who is also an amaz­ing artist!