Sheila Hicks (b. Nebraska, USA, 1934) is one of the world’s foremost artists investigating colour, form and texture through the medium of fibre and textiles. Her works range from large-scale installations and site-specific commissions of voluminous form and colour to small woven explorations she calls minimes.

“I work every day,” she said. When she is not working on large scale projects, she creates miniature weavings on a simple wooden frame in her studio. “They are the embryos of the creative process” and a record of incessant making. The works are closely linked to a place, atmosphere, or memory. She weaves together threads, found objects and materials. She has been making them since the mid-1950s and there are over 1000 of them to date.

I am in awe of all of Sheila Hicks’ work, but it is her minimes that are the influence for my series “Looking Through a Lens”.

Hicks’ daily practice, learning through making, experimenting, playing with ideas, using recycled fabrics, seeing what textile and fibres will actually do, is already a part of my art practice. I am, however, new to weaving, having only touched on simple techniques in the early 1980s.  Learning to weave for these works, even in this simple form, has been a creative and technical learning curve. It has challenged my assumptions of what I can do with this type of weaving while the errors, mistakes, and minute observations in the process of making have brought forth new ideas.

The works consist of a warp in vintage crochet cotton and a weft of vintage floral sheets, both reminiscent of my childhood. The addition of simple embroidery stitches bordered by wrapped large format photographic slide frames reference my love of honing-in on details in the landscape on my daily walks, these along Middleton Beach, Albany.