The Art Cloth Network Story:
2000 - 2020

By Russ Little

Perhaps many organizations begin in this way, with a sigh of regret that something is ending or doesn’t exist in the first place, with the recognition of an overlooked opportunity, or with the often heard words, “someone should…”. Such was the case in 2000 at a time when Jane Dunnewold’s books, teaching, and especially her Art Cloth Mastery program were tapping into and nurturing a groundswell of artists who were dedicating all or part of their studio time to creating Art Cloth—cloth able to stand on its own as finished artwork without the need to be “made into” anything else.

It began with a desire and a challenge

Wrenn Slocum, the founding Chairperson of the Art Cloth Network recalls, “I was bemoaning to Jane that I needed a group of like-minded artists, and she suggested I start a national group.” Wrenn goes on to say, “[Jane] offered her studio as an initial place to meet and a list of people she knew who might be appropriate. Most of those invited did meet for a weekend in San Antonio. I researched how to conduct a meeting in preparation, and many of the group were interested. Most of us had never met before, with the exception of those local to San Antonio.”

“Start a national group.” Sure, how hard could that be? The answer is, harder than you might think. Wrenn remembers that, “The next time we met in Minneapolis, where we plowed through days of hammering out initial structure and bylaws. It was astonishing, after such a grueling weekend, that we remained committed and invested in this enterprise.”

Connie Tiegel, another founding member and past Chairperson, recalls that birthing a new organization wasn’t all smooth sailing. “Many meetings were spent working on the very best language to explain our intent, including long hours of arguments and working out solutions. That is how we built bylaws and rules and then tried to live by them.”

Rather than just jump in and start doing whatever it was this new organization was going to do, those founding members chose what some might call the high road. From the outset they asked the hard questions about who they were, why they were there, what commitment were they making, and how they were going to conduct themselves. And, that commitment to norms and goals has continued. Connie recalls that, “from one year to the next we tried to anticipate our needs, adjust rules to fit them, then have some other situation come up we hadn’t anticipated.”

Hard work paid off

The group’s commitment to good organization brought early success. In 2004 ACN mounted it’s first juried exhibition, “Celebrating Cycles of Life,” at Mendocino College of Art. By the end of 2009 the group had created four juried collections of work and held 7 exhibitions across the US. The year 2009 also marked the beginning of an annual exhibition with a formal call for entry, which continues to the present. The group maintains its commitment to exhibiting work, including requiring all active members to submit work for annual juried show at least three out of five consecutive years. ACN has also succeeded in attracting internationally recognized artists to jury its member shows. Including the most recent show, Full Circle, ACN has shown 15 juried collections of work in noteworthy and highly visible venues such as Miami International Airport, the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, and the Crane Old School Gallery in Philadelphia coinciding with Fiber Philadelphia 2012. According to Connie, “We really started to grow professionally when we had more than one venue for a show. We learned about contracts, insurance, security for our work and we learned about other show opportunities.”

Change brings change

As the group began to mature some of the early members drifted away and it became obvious that new members would be needed to remain viable. The first additions were by invitation, but in 2008 the group issued its first open call for new members, recruiting four new artists who attended their first meeting on the campus of Rutgers University in October 2008. Subsequent calls for new members have occurred almost every year since.

The 2008 meeting was also marked by the introduction of “Robert’s Rules of Order” as a meeting norm, a change that was met with consternation, but has proven useful in the long run. Each introduction of new members brought new ideas, new questions, new preferences, and new ways of doing things—and lots of new proposals to discuss. Such a simple change in the way ACN meetings were conducted might seem insignificant, but it's this sort of commitment to orderly business and thoughtful discussion that has helped sustain the group. We adapted and worked hard to remain flexible. Connie puts it well: “Our best trait is how we support each other within the group and as a group. We constantly support each other’s individual growth and development. All committee work is shared to accomplish our goals...I’m glad we are flexible enough to evaluate ourselves and continually look for the highest quality we can handle. ”

Perennial questions

Healthy organizations ask questions about themselves; ACN certainly does. One of our most often recurring questions centers on the definition of “Art Cloth.” ACN member Barbara James says, “Originally, members created and showed 2-yard lengths of cloth that stood on their own as pieces of art. As new members were juried into the group they promoted a broader definition of art cloth and the way it is exhibited. Because of its receptivity to change, ACN is now on the cutting edge of the textile art field, presenting more textural and abstract art. New members often feature mixed media, sculptural work, gut, transparency, layering and stitching in their work.”

In particular, the advent of digital fabric printing sent waves through the group. “Can we call it art if I didn’t dye it with my own hands?” “Is it original if it’s printed by a computer?” Again, the group persisted—there was hand wringing and debate—and together we embraced these new ways of working. Today members make extensive use of computer-based tools and printing, work in 3D, and even embrace novel material such as wire and gut, plastics, and organic material to produce “cloth.”

ACN has asked bigger questions as well. In 2012 an ad hoc working group spent a year working to articulate ACN’s core values. In 2018 we concluded a detailed review and cleanup of our Bylaws and Standing rules, those foundation documents that date to the first meetings 20 years ago. Now, as we mark our 20th anniversary we are in the early stages of a strategic planning project intended to shed light on the future direction of ACN.

A foundation of dedication

Looking back over 20 years, we can see that the dedication of our members to the continuation of ACN is the foundation on which we stand today. Two members have served multiple terms as Chairperson. Folks have rotated on and off of various committees. Members have sacrificed time, money, and energy to be part of ACN and to help make a place for art cloth in the wider world of fiber art. In exchange, ACN has become a close knit group of colleagues who meet—and exceed—the yearning for a gathering of like-minded artists that Wrenn expressed two decades ago.

This essay originally appeared in the exhibition catalog, “Full Circle: 20th Anniversary Exhibit” published by ACN in 2020.

Artwork by Maggie Weiss