Responding to the historical textile, Mia Weiner creates intimate declarations that explore identity, gender, and the psychology of human relationships. Her large scale tapestries, included in her most recent solo exhibition at Ochi Projects in LA, look critically at power hierarchies within gender dynamics and the depiction of the body throughout history.
For more information, please see: www.miaweiner.com, and on Instagram @miaweiner.
Mia Weiner, Becoming statuary after our swim and borrowing Sebastian’s camera, 2019. Handwoven cotton, acrylic, and tinsel. 56 x 118 inches. Photo credit: Olivia Alonso Gough.
Mia Weiner, Becoming statuary after our swim and borrowing Sebastian’s camera (Detail), 2019. Handwoven cotton, acrylic, and tinsel. 56 x 118 inches. Photo credit: Olivia Alonso Gough.
Mia Weiner, Becoming statuary after our swim and borrowing Sebastian’s camera (Detail), 2019. Handwoven cotton, acrylic, and tinsel. 56 x 118 inches. Photo credit: Olivia Alonso Gough.
First, and most importantly, how are you doing? How are you navigating the highs and lows?
It has been a wild ride. I am very thankful that I have had some amazing opportunities and projects to work on during this time which has really kept me going, including a solo exhibition at Ochi Projects and my representation announcement with Tappan Collective. As disappointing as it has been to have residencies and exhibitions rescheduled, it has also been really great to have something to look forward to in the future and to work toward. I finished my MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago this May, and while I didn’t expect to lose access to my resources and cohort in this unexpected way, it was a truly incredible two years for me and am so grateful to have been able to be part of the program.
Mia Weiner, Lavender, 2019. Handwoven cotton and acrylic. 74 x 58 inches. Photo credit: Olivia Alonso Gough.
Mia Weiner, Lavender (Detail), 2019. Handwoven cotton and acrylic. 74 x 58 inches. Photo credit: Olivia Alonso Gough.
It's my experience that most artists engage with some level of self-isolation in their day to day art practice. Has this been your experience? And if so, have you found these innate rhythms to be helpful during this larger, world-wide experience of isolation?
It is funny, I used to think of my practice as very solitary but recently my work has engaged many different forms of collaboration. While I normally like to work alone in my studio, there is a collaboration that happens between my body and the tools that I am working with, particularly the loom. My most recent series of monochromatic tapestries are based off of photographs that I take to create this work. I carefully pose the models I’m working with alongside my body and stage different compositions. There is a magic collaboration that happens when another person enters the space and allows me to choreograph and document them. I have found not being able to work with models right now frustrating, but it has also been really interesting to reexamine how I was creating my images and how to shift that process to allow the same type of exploration now, whether that means only using my body, asking to work remotely in collaboration, or finding spaces outside to safely work with people within my pod. I think I have definitely found this self-isolation easier than most because of how I like to nest in my studio, but I have also have been having a hard time working, especially at the start of the pandemic. In a moment of such global anxiety and uncertainty, it has been difficult for me to find the clarity I need to be productive. I had just come from a very productive couple of months and being forced to take a break, reset, and just try to take care of myself until I felt ready to work again was a bit of a gift even if it didn’t seem that way at the moment and I still need to constantly remind myself it is ok…
Mia Weiner, Returning your gaze, 2019. Handwoven cotton and acrylic. 98 x 44 inches. Photo credit: Olivia Alonso Gough
Mia Weiner, Returning your gaze (Detail), 2019. Handwoven cotton and acrylic. 98 x 44 inches. Photo credit: Olivia Alonso Gough
Mia Weiner, Lilac, 2019. Handwoven cotton and acrylic, 74 x 65 inches. Photo credit: Olivia Alonso Gough.
It would be great if you could briefly talk us through your practice. Understanding it is integral to appreciating the multivalence of your work.
Through poetics of the body, I investigate where bodies meet, cross, tangle, and where they pull away. As I navigate myself in relation to the world around me, I see the body in its flawed, innately intimate and personal nature as an apt metaphor for our shortcomings, limits, boundaries, and a need for connection. Using the familiarity and tactility of cloth, I bring focused attention to our relationships and how our identities are constructed. Evoking conversation around our patterns and choices of co- inhabitation, I stitch, knot, and weave intimate declarations that explore both togetherness and attachment as well as identity and gender.
My practice has always started from a place of inquiry. Reconsidering classical imagery and the depiction of the female form in relation to contemporary views of gender, authority, and representation, I began my most recent series of tapestries. Engaging in histories of portraiture, I use my own body in each weaving, reclaiming agency in my depiction. In moments of erasure, subjectivities are removed, but the bodies assert their power by gazing back. Threads hang down as a reveal of material and tactility of the cloth, creating webs that mirror the interlacement of bodies. My work is about connection, both between bodies and cloth as a place of shared experience. Mediating photography through cloth, these tapestries begin to equalize the relationship between object and image. Using traditional and non-traditional textile techniques, I examine the space between bodies and where bodies meet.
Mia Weiner, Push/Pull, 2020. Handwoven cotton and acrylic. 54 x 43.5 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
Mia Weiner, If not with you, 2020. Handwoven cotton and acrylic. 74 x 94 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
Mia Weiner, If not with you (Detail), 2020. Handwoven cotton and acrylic. 74 x 94 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
Has any of your imagery shifted in a reflection to what's currently happening? And why, or why not?
I have been making work about intimacy and how bodies interact, exploring moments of touch, tenderness, and absence. We are living in a moment where the awareness of the space between bodies is currently being experienced globally at an unprecedented scale. I am really interested in reconsidering these distances. Longing, touch, activity, all feel so different now, and I actually feel really stimulated by this change in perception and relationships. There are moments where I also have to take a break from everything that is going on and try to relax and play. I have been doing a series of plastic filament drawings of the plants in my house and yard to escape a bit and am interested in how these pieces will tie back into my lacemaking practice.
Quarantine plant drawings (studio floor). Image courtesy of the artist.
Digi doodle of studio plant with hand - Schefflera, 2020. PLA plastic filament. 12 x 9.75. Image courtesy of the artist.
Are you thinking differently? Coping differently? Inspired differently?
Yes. My work for a long time has been about relationships between bodies and just before quarantine I began the process of separating with my partner. I think my marriage has really affected the way I had been thinking about the figure and power structures. While it has been difficult, especially in this moment, it has been an exciting shift in the way I have been thinking about compositions and the content within my work. I think in some ways these other factors, finishing graduate school remotely, losing access to my studio and tools, and going through a divorce, all while trying to navigate a global pandemic really helped me be gentle with myself, something that I am not always great at. I think trying to be gentle and letting go of the little stuff (because there is just too much big stuff to deal with right now) has really been an important lesson and has helped me cope in a real way. I am constantly inspired by my garden. I have a shared yard, and the minute it began to warm up I was out there as much as possible. Last summer I spent a month at Vermont Studio Center, and the bouquets of wildflowers that I picked and placed in my studio slowly made their way into my weavings. This spring I decided if I wasn’t going to escape the city, I would grow as many flowers as possible. I believe in slow and close looking, whether looking at textiles, the body, or the sprouting seeds in my garden. The magic of discovery has been exciting, and I have always loved to watch things grow. I have begun to pick (slightly scrappy) bouquets and photograph them knowing that I want to add them to moments in the work that is about to come.
Mia Weiner, Your damp towel, 2020. Handwoven cotton and acrylic. 74 x 96 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
Mia Weiner, Your damp towel (Details), 2020. Handwoven cotton and acrylic. 74 x 96 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
What is bringing you solace, or even joy, in this moment?
My garden. And a lot of wine. Upcoming projects. Bad music, my digi pen, and sunshine!
Mia Weiner, The Serpent, 2020. Handwoven cotton and acrylic. 74 x 98 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
Mia Weiner, The Serpent (Detail), 2020. Handwoven cotton and acrylic. 74 x 98 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
What research or writing are you doing that you find compelling?
Having temporarily lost access to the loom that I had been working on, I have taken this break to delve back into my lacemaking practice. I have been doing a ton of material research working with traditional lace-making techniques, integrating materials like plastic filament and wire, and playing with hard and soft as well as slow and fast methods of making.
Mia Weiner, The Wrestlers, 2020. Handwoven acrylic and cotton. 74 x 122 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
Mia Weiner, The Wrestlers (Detail), 2020. Handwoven acrylic and cotton. 74 x 122 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
Are you reading anything?
Agua Vida, recommended by Kelly Kazcinsky (a fantastic Chicago based artist), my favorite book of Frank O’Hara poems, and the news only once a day.
Mia Weiner, Thread Drawings #9 - 11, 2019. Embroidery. Dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist.
Mia Weiner, Thread Drawings # 3 - 8, 2019. Embroidery. Dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist.
Mia Weiner, Thread Drawings #9 - 11 (Detail), 2019. Embroidery. Dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist.
Where are you physically?
I just moved to LA (this week!) where I am starting a jacquard residency program and shared workspace - The Jacquard Project ! I am currently fundraising for a TC2 digital jacquard, a digitally assisted loom tool that allows individual control of each and every warp thread for every single row while hand weaving (the warp is the threads that are wound onto the loom before you begin to weave).
The Jacquard Project will function as a live/workspace for residents a portion of the year. The rest of the year, The Jacquard Project will allow access to the weaving/creative community in LA and have classes and workshops for those who would like to learn how to use this incredible resource (along with other art and educational programming)! I am currently in the fundraising stage - the loom being built for The Jacquard Project costs around $60k before freight and other set-up costs (for the weavers out there, it is a 3-wide loom with 12 modules = 43" weaving width, 2640 ends).
The Jacquard Project believes deeply in cooperative workspaces, the creative exchange, and expanding access to the TC2. This loom is an amazing resource to the creative and textile communities and you can find out more or make a (tax-deductible!) donation here.
Mia weaving at the loom. Image courtesy of the artist.
Mia with loom. Image courtesy of the artist.
Mia with If not with you. Image courtesy of the artist.