BMCA exhibit showcases work with industrial looms

‘A Hundred Thousand Sled Dogs’ features work by Gabrielle Duggan

Jessica Klarp
Guest contributor
The Valley Echo
March 26, 2021

"Beach Hairs" is one of 15 works by Greenville artist Gabrielle Duggan featured in the exhibit “A Hundred Thousand Sled Dogs” on display at the Black MOuntain Center for the Arts through Sunday, April 25. Image courtesy of BMCA

Fifteen “webwords,” weaved and crocheted by Greenville, N.C. artist Gabrielle Duggan will fill the Upper Gallery in the Black Mountain Center for the Arts beginning Friday, April 2. 

“A Hundred Thousand Sled Dogs,” an exhibit featuring work from the East Carolina University fiber educator, will be on display, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., until Sunday, April 25. 

The title of the show is one way to describe how it feels to program and hand weave on industrial Jacquard looms.

“The warp (crosswise) threads are like trying to control thousands of sled dogs, each with their own mind and individual motivations,” Duggan said. “There is a powerful surge of energy and the artist has to communicate with the threads both digitally and manually. So I harness the energy of a team of threads, trying to orchestrate that, to direct it.”

Part of what makes their work so powerful is the disruption of the weaving process. Several of the works on display will feel unfinished or appear to be falling apart. Disruption is the goal. The artist chooses what to put in the weft (longitudinal, stationary threads), when and where to insert it and describes that action as a wrench in the process. “If there is a human involved,” they said, “something unpredictable is going to happen and that's what I'm interested in. Unpredictability.” 

Duggan pushes material and social boundaries in her work by establishing and challenging binary systems through repetitive tension and balance. By constructing installations and objects that combine techniques of fiber work with disparate materials 

“I push expectations of traditional work,” she said. 

Some of her work is created by portable knitting machines and some by hand, and their relationship with the material becomes intimate. 

“Tension is important in all of these things: physical tension and perceived tension,” she said.

Duggan’s work has evolved, building from experience and education in fine art, fashion and textiles at SUNY Buffalo, the Fashion Institute of Technology, N.C. State University and under Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir. Her work has been supported by the NC Arts Council through the Regional Artist Project Grant; Art on the Atlanta Beltline; exhibitions at South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art and others.

Additionally, Duggan has been a Knight Foundation Emerging Artist at Ponyride in Michigan; a fellow at Salem Art Works (NY); and an R.R. Dunn Artist in Residence in collaboration with Adrian Smith's laboratory in the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences. 

Take advantage of the opportunity to view this unique exhibit at the Black Mountain Center for the Arts at 225 West State Street. The show can be viewed and pieces can be purchased online. For more information visit blackmountainarts.org/gallery or call 828-669-0930.