Courtesy of The Textile Museum; Jóh Ricci, Earth Day

These artists show the many ways that green can be captured, both as a color and as a call for action.

New 'Green' Exhibit Opens at the Textile Museum

The newest exhibit from the Textile Museum, “Green: The Color and the Cause,” proves that—at least for the talented artists featured—it’s actually not that hard being green.

The exhibit, the third and final installation in the museum’s exploration of color as a medium (the previous exhibits were “Red” and “Blue,” in 2007 and 2008, respectively), showcases verdant hues in all shapes and sizes.

Tapestries, paintings and textiles adorn the freshly painted walls (green, naturally) amid smatterings of more contemporary pieces such as the exhibit’s kicker: “A Shape of Green,” by Shigeo Kubota from Kyoto, Japan. Photos of the vibrant rocket-shaped piece don’t do it justice—the work is more than 5 feet tall and was completely hand-woven with dyed fishing line-like material (sisal) by the artist, who was on hand to discuss his work at a recent exhibit preview. (photo by Chloe Thompson, right)

Through a translator, he explained to the Flyer that he wants his work to be the “first of many,” in telling society that there has to be a better ways to go green and be green. The rocket ship is a symbolic image because it represents a new beginning, which he hopes to see for the environment.

Each artist was asked to answer the question, “ What does ‘green’ mean to you?,” which fostered a range of answers covering topics such as education (“Hothouse Flowers” by Maggy Rozycki points to the pressures facing children as they grow up and how society is distancing them from nature) to endangered species (“Gold Jaguar” by Ruth Marshall weaves a jaguar-skin likeness from knitted yarn to show the importance of preserving splendid animals such as this big cat; photo left). Other works include a finely-crafted darker green set of jackets from Persia made of recycled materials, and even a piece made solely of crocheted fibers from the bags of Sunday morning papers that Jodi Colella asked her friends and family for.

Not-to-miss (and the scope makes it hard to avoid) is one of the first-ever site-specific installations for the museum from New Jersey artist Nancy Cohen, whose original work “Estuary: Moods and Modes,” spanned more than 60 feet. On hand to chat about her work, Cohen explained the newer piece is a scaled down version created just for the museum meant to create a more intimate setting so one feels “like they’re actually in the river.”

“This piece is about bringing a fragility and the beauty of nature to mind,” she says. “It’s both – it’s fragile, but it’s strong and in a world where we need to appreciate it and protect it, the fragility of it is ours to preserve.” Cohen brings nature into her work in a literal sense with the integration of marsh grasses in the abaca used to create her assemblage. (Photo of Nancy’s assemblage, right)

Co-curator Lee Talbot says of the color green, “It’s rare, if not unique, for a color to become universally associated with a specific idea. Green is a secondary color created by combining yellow and blue, which gives it an ambiguous feel. In the spectrum of the titles in the show, in the paint in the hallways and, of course, the objects themselves, that the cause of green is equally diverse.”

Green: The Color and the Cause at the Textile Museum; 2320 S St., NW; runs through Sept. 11.

(Photos courtesy of The Textile Museum by Katy Uravitch unless otherwise noted)