“Tectonic Grind” by Monica Raden will be on display this September as part of the Locker 50b gallery located on the third floor of the Fine Arts Building.
Locker 50b opened in 2002 when painting and printmaking student Virginia Samsel converted her 12″ wide, 14″ tall and 19″ deep storage locker into a miniature art gallery for undergraduate, graduate and faculty artists. Although Samsel graduated, the legacy of Locker 50b lives on this month through Raden’s work.
Raden’s tiny hand-dyed fabrics are hung from the interior walls of the locker. She created them using a Japanese fabric-dyeing technique called shibori. This is a method of dyeing cloth that involves folding, twisting or compressing the fabric to create unique ink patterns.
“I typically work with post-feminist material, like pantyhose and stuff,” Raden said. “This was inspired by mostly traditional fabric design.”
Raden used a method called potato dextrin resist to dye the cloth that created cracked, lacy patterns. Hand-made vinyl lettering on a hand-designed, gold-embroidered cloth hung from the back wall of the locker.
“I hand-embroidered in gold thread drawings based on geological and tectonic imagery,” Raden said. “The two tectonic plates grinding together stand as a metaphor for relationships, for love and sex.”
Rachael Starbuck, a sculpture major, helped arrange the show and said she considered Raden as a possible person to be featured because she worked on a smaller scale and was familiar with her work. Starbuck said the last couple of Locker 50b shows had included mostly drawings and paintings and she wanted to add more variety.
“We want to try and get as many different types of materials and working processes in the show,” Starbuck said. “You don’t see embroidery and things like that. We wanted to get something different.”
“Tectonic Grind,” will be on display on the third floor of the Fine Arts Building, 1000 W. Broad St. through September from 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Spectrum Editor Veronica Garabelli contributed to this report.