Sheila Hicks and I
Boston 2015, I don’t remember the exact month but it was probably cold. It’s a family visit, so the days belong to me. ICA Museum, the modern art museum, sits on the riverbank. Water reflects off of it, and its’ insides are loud and excited. It is the time before iota. A time in which I try and find intriguing interpretations for the combination I have just been offered to lead – textile and social impact.
This exhibition is where I meet Sheila Hicks, the textile artist who became my rock star. I didn’t actually meet her in person, but it was probably the ideal way to meet at this stage. She breaks my personal conventions about textile, color, scale and relevance and brings me to visit the exhibition again and even send my partner, Shula Mozes, who formulated the idea of textile and social impact, to observe and feel, hoping this would be a starting point for our shared journey.
Sheila and I are in a mostly one sided affair ever since. In June 2017, as part of Jerusalem Design Week, iota had the chance to create an homage for Sheila Hicks. In July 2017, I travelled to Paris and visited Sheila at her studio. I walked up alone, without even my travelling partner. Sheila showed me her home, her studio- which was inspiringly messy- and shared a little about the way in which she works.
In November 2018, a solo Sheila Hicks exhibition opened in Magazine III Gallery in Jaffa. Small and intimate, not the kind that you see at the Biennale. The curator, Karmit Galili is successful in bringing different kinds of people into the gallery. Passersby, neighbors, those who understand more and less about art, all want to touch substance and spirit.
The travelling partner from Paris wrote about this exhibition, here’s a link to his piece, I am nodding in agreement. Every word is precise.
http://thegarconniere.telavivian.com/2018/10/17/the-light-of-sheila-hicks/
On the first day of February 2019, about four years after that coincidental meeting at the ICA in Boston, which I still consider a milestone, a gallery talk will take place at Sheila Hicks’ exhibition Migdalor at Magazine III Gallery. I intend to talk about the similarities of our work, the different aspects of dealing with textile design alongside the fading local industry, the desire to create a social impact and how stirring emotions is actually functional.
