An interview of Adela Akers conducted 2008 March 4-6, by Mija Riedel, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at Akers' studio, in Guerneville, California.
Akers speaks of her California studio; moving from Spain to Cuba at a young age; earning a degree in pharmacy before pursuing art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; her parents' businesses; struggling with English and becoming a citizen; the influence of architecture, geometry, and math in her work; her first big show at the American Craft Museum; working at Penland School of Crafts and Cranbrook Academy of Art; her several commissioned works; light and shadow in her accordion-shaped pieces; working with the Peace Corps and weaving in Peru; learning pre-Colombian weaving techniques; working on a commissioned project in Mexico with native weavers; experimenting with size and color in weaving; teaching at the Tyler School of Art; the influence of travel in her work; the qualities of jute, sisal, metal, and horsehair in weaving. Akers also recalls Cindy Cleary, Guido Llinas, Abelardo Estorino, Marianne Strengell, Ed Rossback, Glen Kaufman, Julia and Isiah Zagar, Joyce Chow, Katie and Billy Bernstein, Tom Suomalainen, Ron Garfinkel, Lee Nordness, Janet Taylor, Leora Stewart, Aron Siskin, Lewis Knauss, Agnes Martin, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Adela Akers (1933- ) is a fiber artist from Guerneville, California. Mija Riedel (1958- ) is a curator and writer from San Francisco, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 10 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr., 59 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
An interview of Barbara Lee Smith conducted 2009 March 16-17, by Mija Riedel, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at Smith's home, in Gig Harbor, Washington. Smith speaks of moving around a lot with her family as a child; most of her childhood memories in Cape May, New Jersey where she recalls an early love of the ocean; playing piano from early childhood through young adulthood and its continued influence in her visual art; attending Douglass College at Rutgers University where she graduated with a home economics major; the first time she saw an Abstract Expressionist exhibition in college and the memory of those paintings; her love of color through sunsets and music; learning machine embroidery as a young mother from a Better Homes & Gardens article in the 1960s; falling in love with embroidery and learning as much as she could about the art form; being influenced by artists such as Mariska Karasz and Constance Howard; taking initiative after the Human Potential Movement and started pursuing embroidery art full time; participating in local, national and international embroidery and craft guilds; her love of historic embroideries; receiving her MFA Northern Illinois University; various techniques from her early years of making that still find their way into her work today; teaching workshops and seminars as an adult education teacher for almost 40 years; the influence of traveling to places such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom has had on her work; early abstract works in comparison to her recent, more representational work; the role maps have played in a good portion of her work; her work process and rather painterly approach to creating; the love of making and creating; the challenge and problem-solving qualities of taking commissions; writing the book, "Celebrating the Stitch" and the subsequent exhibitions that traveled around the world; the use of layering in her work to create clear layers of color; a collaborative book project with fellow artist, Jane Dunnewold; various exhibitions she has participated in and curated; her studio in Gig Harbor, Washington; relocating to Washington after 30 years in Chicago, Illinois and the influence the move had on her work. Smith also recalls Jill Nordforsclark, Randall Lanou, John Pemberton III, Jane Buckley, Jean Ray Laury, Jens Jensen, Bucky King, Henry Stahmer, Mary Lee Hu, Barbara Krug, Diane and Bill Itter, Renie Breskin Adams, Dimitri and Avra Liakos, Michael James, Chris Timmons, Studs Terkel, Bertil Vallien, Deidre Scherer, Jan Beaney, Tadao Andu, Jacquline Govin, Jean Littlejohn, and Billie Ruth Sudduth among others.
Biographical / Historical:
Barbara Lee Smith (1938- ) is a mixed media artist known for sculptural drawings constructed from fabric and lives and works in Gig Harbor, Washington.
General:
Originally recorded as 6 sound files. Duration is 5 hr., 21 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
An interview of Claire Zeisler conducted 1981 June, by Dennis Barrie, for the Archives of American Art.
Biographical / Historical:
Claire Zeisler (1903-1991) was a fiber artist from Chicago, Illinois.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hrs., 49 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Names:
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Extent:
98 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
2012 July 6-7
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Anne Wilson conducted 2012 July 6 and 7, by Mija Riedel, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at Wilson's home, in Evanston, Illinois.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Anne Wilson (1949- ) is a fiber artist and installation artist in Chicago, Illinois. Interviewer Mija Riedel (1958- ) is an independent scholar in San Francisco, California.
General:
Originally recorded as 7 sound files. Duration is 5 hr., 15 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Restrictions:
For information on how to access this interview contact Reference Services.
The papers of fiber artist Claire Zeisler measure 3.5 linear feet and date from 1941 to 1992. Zeisler's career is documented through project files, printed materials, and scrapbooks. The bulk of the collection consists of twenty-two scrapbooks containing resumes and chronologies; an honorary degree; business correspondence with libraries, museums, and other institutions concerning exhibitions of Zeisler's work and the loan of her personal art collection; exhibition lists and condition reports; loan records; printed materials for exhibitons; and scattered sketches and hanging instructions. Project files contain documents relating to titled weavings and general works, and may include fabric samples, hanging instructions, plans, and material costs. Also found are three exhibition catalogs.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of fiber artist Claire Zeisler measure 3.5 linear feet and date from 1941 to 1992. Zeisler's career is documented through project files, printed materials, and scrapbooks. The bulk of the collection consists of twenty-two scrapbooks containing resumes and chronologies; an honorary degree; business correspondence with libraries, museums, and other institutions concerning exhibitions of Zeisler's work and the loan of her personal art collection; exhibition lists and condition reports; loan records; printed materials for exhibitons; and scattered sketches and hanging instructions. Project files contain documents relating to titled weavings and general works, and may include fabric samples, hanging instructions, plans, and material costs. Also found are three exhibition catalogs.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as three series
Series 1: Project Files, circa 1941-1991 (0.8 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Printed Material, 1977-1987 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Scrapbooks, 1941-1992 (2.5 linear feet; Boxes 2-5)
Biographical / Historical:
Claire Zeisler (1903-1991) was a fiber artist and art collector active in Chicago, Illinois.
Zeisler was born Claire Block in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1903. She studied at Columbia College Chicago but left to marry Harold Florsheim in 1921. The couple divorced in 1943 and she married Ernest Zeisler in 1946.
For much of her early life, Claire concentrated her interest in art on collecting. Throughout the 1930s, she acquired paintings by European modern artists such as Paul Klee, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso. Later, she collected paintings by American artists such as Franz Kline and Robert Rauschenberg. She expanded her collection to include textile works and baskets by Native Americans, and African sculpture among others.
After her divorce, she returned to the study of art at the Chicago Institute of Design and the Illinois Institute of Technology. She studied under Bea Swartchild who inspired a love for weaving. Zeisler's first works used traditional loom techniques but later she focused on knotting and braiding. She innovated free-falling fiber sculpture and her works helped push fiber art from craft to a fine art.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview of Claire Zeisler conducted by Dennis Barrie in June 1981.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reel 3109) inluding scrapbooks lent by Ziesler in 1983. Some, but not all, of this material was included in later donations. This material remains with the lender and is not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Scrapbooks on reel 3019 were lent to the Archives of American Art for microfilming in August 1983 by Claire Zeisler. In 1992 her son and executor, Thomas Florsheim, donated additional scrapbooks, and project and weaving files. He interfiled new material in the previously microfilmed scrapbooks, 1941-1983, expanding them from eight notebooks to thirteen.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The papers of the visual artist and educator Anne Wilson measure 1.4 linear feet and 0.065 GB and date from 1977-2012. The papers primarily document her career through biographical material and printed material. The bulk of this collection is made up of exhibition materials and magazines that feature Wilson but also included are examples of her work as a guest curator. Some documents are in digital format.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of the visual artist and educator Anne Wilson measure 1.4 linear feet and 0.065 GB and date from 1977-2012. The papers primarily document her career through biographical material and printed material. The bulk of this collection is made up of exhibition materials and magazines that feature Wilson but also included are examples of her work as a guest curator. Some documents are in digital format.
Series 2: Printed Material, 1978-2012 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, 0.063 GB; ER02)
Biographical / Historical:
Anne Wilson (1949- ) is a visual artist who lives and works in Evanston, Illinois. She is a professor of Fiber and Material Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and continues to exhibit her own work around the country.
After graduating with a BFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Wilson moved to the Bay Area in California. While living there between 1972 and 1979, she completed her MFA at the California College of the Arts. During her time in California, she also served as a guest curator for two exhibits, both at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco's Downtown Center.
In 1979 she started teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as a Professor of Fiber and Material Studies. Beginning in California and continuing to today, her work has been consistently exhibited all over the United States as well as in England. Wilson considers herself more of a visual artist than a fiber artist because her work often includes components of sculpture, drawings, performances and video in addition to the elements more often associated with a fiber artist. She is also known for using human hair in her pieces.
Related Materials:
Also in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview of Anne Wilson conducted July 6 and 7, 2012, by Mija Riedel.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in 2013 by Anne Wilson.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
