About the Fiber Arts Work “Apron” and Necklace
The fiber arts works are mobile constructions of weavings. Used as symbols, found natural objects- shells, seeds, dried plant materials, feathers, skeletal sea creatures and insects, snakeskin, antler, beads, stones, and crystals, (some gifted, others purchased) - are variously woven, knotted, or netted into fibers depending from supporting frames that are suspended from above. Each framework varies in accord with the concept being presented. “Apron” is displayed on a driftwood hanger, and can be removed from the hanger and worn.
“Apron” c 2002 symbolizes creation of civilization from female consciousness. Creation of the arts and sciences and artifacts of civilization is woman’s work. Work often requires an apron worn in studio, office, kitchen, or shrine. A skirt-like apron, or apron-like skirt, is an ancient garment. It is depicted on female figures found in the record of archaeology from the Indus River Civilization of India to the Stone and Bronze Age civilizations of Europe, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean. A string apron is part of the folk costume of the present day in Central Europe, and is the everyday garment of the present day in New Guinea. A net or web image occurs in the mythology of numerous cultures, including the Hindu, the Native American, and the Greek, and the image occurs as well in the ethic of the Green Movement.
“Necklace” c 2002, a classic human adornment,
is presented with the “Apron.”
“Apron” was an inspiration in 1994 while musing on the many networks forming and sustaining connections between the people in my life, informed by special recognition of the networks of women, and insights from long study of the arts and mythologies of the peoples of the world while musing on the many similarities in their symbolic images, including a great web, or net, holding all of creation.
- M.F.L. Patton c 2026
