Polly Barton Explained

Polly Barton
Birth Place:	New York City, U.S.
Education:	Barnard College (BA) Fashion Institute of Technology Parsons School of Design Northern New Mexico Community College
Occupation:	Textile artist

Polly Barton is an American textile artist.

Biography

She was born in New York City.^[1] As a student, she studied art history at Barnard College (class of 1978) and has lived and traveled in Paris, Florence, and Rome. In 1981, she moved to Kameoka, Japan, to study with master weaver Tomohiko Inoue, living in the religious heart of the Oomoto Foundation. She returned to New York in 1982 and continued to weave on her Japanese tsumugi silk kimono looms.^[2]

She shows her woven silk ikat paintings on both coasts,^[3] and is collected by the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and by private collectors. Her work has been published in numerous magazines including Hali Magazine, FiberArts, Surface Design Journal and American Craft. She is a member of the Textile Society of America, Friends of Fiber Arts International, the Surface Design Association and the Textile Arts Alliance of Santa Fe.

Exhibitions

2012:

• New Woven Works, William Siegal Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
• San Francisco Art Fair, Linda Fairchild Contemporary Art, San Francisco, California
• Sourcing the Museum, The Textile Museum, Washington, DC^[4]
• New Works, Gail Martin, New York City

2011:

• Sleight of Hand, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
• Instructors Exhibition, Penland School of Crafts, Penland, North Carolina

2010:

• New Work, William Siegal Gallery, Santa Fe
• New Fibers 2010, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan
• Transformed Traditions in Ikat, Modern Arts Midwest, Lincoln, Nebraska

2009 :

• Origin, Shumei Arts Council, Pasadena, California

2008 :

• Thread: Drawn, Dyed, Woven, William Siegal Gallery, Santa Fe
• Visible Presence, San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, San Jose, California
• Woven Expressions, Gail Martin Gallery, New York City

2007 :

• Saturn Returns: Back to the Future of Fiber Art, San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, San Jose
• Los Pintores: Past, Present, and Future, RSA along with FACT, Santa Fe
• Then and Now, William Siegal Gallery, Santa Fe

2006:

• Material Difference: Soft Sculpture and Wall Works, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois

2005 :

• SOFA Chicago, Jane Sauer Gallery, Chicago

2004:

• New Works, Linda Fairchild Gallery, San Francisco

2003 :

• Opening Night, Linda Fairchild Gallery of Contemporary Art, San Francisco
• SOFA New York, Gail Martin Gallery, New York City

2002 :

• Threads on the Edge: The Daphne Farago Fiber Art Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
• Survey Fiber 2002, Snyderman-Works Galleries, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Public collections

• Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago^[5]
• Miho Museum, Misono, Japan
• Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Daphne Farago Collection, Boston
• Guido Goldman Ikat Collection, New York City
• Davis, Polk & Wardwell, London, England and New York City
• Tobin Collection, Santa Fe
• Oomoto Foundation, Kameoka, Japan
• Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, New York City
• Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
• Church of the Heavenly Rest, New York City
• Community Hospital Foundation of the Monterey Peninsula

Honors

• 1997 – Honorable Mention Crafts, Taos Open, Taos, New Mexico
• 1986 – Stanley Mendelbaum Award, Juried Exhibition of the New York Guild of Handweavers, New York City
• 1985 – Juror's Award, Juried Exhibition of the New York Guild of Handweavers, New York City
• 1984 – Best of Show Award, Convergence ’84, Dallas, Texas

Lectures and workshops

• 2009 – Shumei, Crestone, Colorado
• 2008 – William Siegal Gallery, Santa Fe
  • Visible Presence, San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, San Jose
  • Textile Arts Alliance, Santa Fe
  • Shumei, Crestone
• 2004 – Design with Heart, Santa Fe
• 2002 – Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  • Textile Arts Alliance, Santa Fe
  • Summer Workshop: Ikat, Northern New Mexico Community College, El Rito, New Mexico
• 2001 – Summer Workshop: Ikat, Northern New Mexico Community College, El Rito

Education

• 2000–1993 – Northern New Mexico Community College, El Rito
• 1984 – Parsons School of Design, New York City
• 1983–82 – Fashion Institute of Technology, New York City
• 1981–82 – Kameoka, Japan, Apprentice to Master weaver Tomohiko Inoue
• 1978 – Summer seminar, The Oomoto School of Traditional Japanese Arts, Kameoka, Japan
• 1978 – BA, Barnard College, New York City, magna cum laude

Further reading

• Elder, E. Gaye. “Polly Barton: Painter of Silk Ikats”. Shuttle, Spindle, and Dyepot. Volume 41, No. 4, Spring 2010
• Arney, Suzanne Smith. “Fiber Exhibitions by Polly Barton, Mary Anne Jordan, Eleanor McCain, and Mary Zicafoos”. Shuttle, Spindle, and Dyepot.
  • Vol. XXXIX, No. 4, Fall 2008, page 26–28.
• Westfall, Carol. “Polly Barton: Woven Explorations”. Surface Design Journal. Volume 22, No. 1, Fall 2008. Page 60-61
• Wykes, Sarah. “Rise of the Quilters”. San Jose Mercury News. December 9, 2007
• “Then and Now”. Art News. Vol. 106, Summer 2007 Issue, page 209
• Ullman, Polly. Material Difference and Soft Sculpture & Wall Works. Published by Friends of Fiber Art International
• Heppenheimer, Jill. “Creativity at Midlife”. FiberArts. Vol. 32 No. 2, Sept/Oct. 2005, pages 46–51
• Myers, Janice. “At Home with the Sacred”, Su Casa, Vol. 10 No. 3, Summer 2004, pages 68–75
• SOFA New York, The Sixth Annual International Exposition of Sculpture Objects and Functional Art,
  • May 29-June 1, 2003, Catalogue page 77
• Hoffman, Bruce. Survey Fiber 2002, Snyderman-Works Galleries, Catalogue page 4
• Surface Design Journal, Summer 2001, Feature article
• SOFA New York, The Sixth Annual International Exposition of Sculpture Objects and Functional Art,
  • May 31-June 4, 2001, Catalogue page 63
• A Front Row Seat for SOFA, Special Advertising Supplement, Art & Auction, 2001, page 202
• Zrebiec, Alice. “Polly Barton’s Ikat Paintings: Internal Harmony/External Epiphany”. Surface Design Journal,
  • Vol 25. No 4. Summer 2001, pages 36–41
• Larochette, Jean Pierre and Lurie, Yael. “Thread by Thread”. American Tapestry Biennial III, 2000
• HALI Magazine, Design File, Winter 2000
• “Exposure”, Surface Design Journal, Vol 23, No 3, Spring 1999, page 42
• Pasatiempo, Santa Fe New Mexican, Nov. 1994
• Malarcher, Patricia. “Of One Cloth: Textiles of the Liturgical Arts”, Surface Design Journal, Vol 13, No.3. Spring 1989, pages 5–11
• Malarcher, Patricia. The Liturgical Vestment: a Contemporary Overview, FiberArts, vol.11, No.5. Sept/Oct 1984, pages 58–61

^[6]

Notes and References

1. Web site: Silk Weaver – Santa Fe, New Mexico . Polly Barton . 2012-10-31.
2. Web site: DesignCraft Heroine: Polly Barton. Regina . Connell . handful of salt . 2011-01-03 . 2012-10-31.
3. Web site: Polly Barton . American Tapestry Alliance . 2012-10-19 . 2012-10-31.
4. Web site: Museum as Muse: The Textile Museum Collection Inspires New Works From Contemporary Artists in "Sourcing the Museum" « Textile Museum Press Room . Pressroom.textilemuseum.org . 2012-10-31 . https://archive.today/20130415223630/http://pressroom.textilemuseum.org/2012/01/20/museum-as-muse-the-textile-museum-collection-inspires-new-works-from-contemporary-artists-in-souring-the-museum/ . 2013-04-15 . dead .
5. Web site: Raven's Ridge. The Art Institute of Chicago. 2020-12-26.
6. Web site: Gallery . Gail Martin Gallery . 2012-10-31.