Review

A review of Holly Swangstu's Springtime in Winter

Holly Swangstu, detail of "Springtime in Winter," stretched hand-dyed flannel, three sections of 11' x 20' each, site-specific installation at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art. Photo: Andrew Birgensmith

Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art
St. Joseph Missouri
January 16, — April 3, 2010

By opening evening, the weather in the Kansas City area had been hovering between zero and freezing for days, but inside the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, Holly Swangstu’s Springtime in Winter glowed warmly. Three walls of the Esson Gallery there are covered with her vast composite canvases (the material stretched over wood frames is actually flannel colored with dye). Each 11-foot by 20-foot wall is fashioned from eight “quilt squares” of nine or so smaller stretchers fixed together. Four color zones represent earth and sky (narrow bands at top and bottom) and green land and blue sea (that move in from left and right, merging in the middle).

Artist Holly Swangstu steps back to regard her work, "Springtime in Winter," during its installation at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri. Photo: Andrew Birgensmith

Hand-dyed flannel quilt squares sound cozy, comprehensible. Swangstu, though, has a production method that is labor-intensive and idiosyncratic; the resulting look of the work is vivid in an uncanny way. To prepare, she dyed 120 yards of what she refers to as “baby” flannel in a modified tie-dye manner. After its dying, washing, and drying, the cloth was torn in finger-width strips. Swangstu next attached the strips to individual stretchers until the picture space was filled with color that looks shimmery from afar despite the soft matte material.

Pausing during the hanging process, Swangstu embraces works stretched from strips of hand-dyed flannel that have been assembled into 64-inch “quilt square” sets. Photo: Andrew Birgensmith

At first, the pixie-sized artist, with her manicured red nails, might have you thinking she is too lady-like to have stapled all 216 canvases personally. Swangstu is a long-distance runner and works out socking a punching bag in her studio. She says she feels athletic training has helped her here: she needed the physical strength, and training schedules informed her studio strategy. Having drawn up a week-by-week plan, she could work undaunted and finish her “marathon.”

Swangstu’s plans laid out in her studio detailed her composition and construction of "Springtime in Winter." Photo: courtesy of the artist

But did she all this single-handedly? Swangstu recollects declining to meet friends socially in advance of her deadline; rather than forgo her society, friends joined in on evenings of tearing and sorting strips of color. Among the many who lent a hand was her brother, Troy Swangstu, an artist himself, who led the team that mounted the work on the museum’s walls.

Her monumental scheme had Swangstu firing her staple gun down to the day of hanging. By Wednesday before the Friday reception, the installation was mounted, and for two days the artist stood on ladders and preened it of loose threads and other small imperfections.

The artist in her loft studio during assembly — a process that used more than 10,000 (manual) staples. Photo: Kari Heybrock

Entering Springtime in Winter yields a sensation of being bathed in soothing color. The color harmonies demand attention and are supported by the quieter organization of quilt square units. Swangstu will tell you that she loves the way that color looks as dye on flannel. Among her favorite colors is the “spring green” that appears in nature for only two weeks a year, she says. The installation is scheduled to remain at the museum until just about the time the color touches the actual Midwestern landscape.

The project was suggested when a member of the Albrecht-Kemper Museum staff happened to see a narrow 13-foot piece by Swangstu. This format seemed like it might suit the small Esson Gallery, a space that artists had previously found difficult to fill.

In her role as director/curator at the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Swangstu says she likes to push artists; when she begins to plan an exhibition with an artist, she emphasizes that the work to be shown should not be already completed and worked out. So the 60-square-foot wall space of Springtime in Winter is what we get when Swangstu gets just a little push herself — she models the possibility of stretching oneself artistically. Similar to the monarch caterpillar whose very skin peels back to reveal its chrysalis, there was outlay for Swangstu. She funded the carefully-budgeted project personally, and upon completion, she brightly extended a hand still sore from stapling to gallery goers on opening night. Her whole person ached then, she said.

“What new monumental scheme is Ms. Swangstu planning out now?” and “What will become of this expansive installation of sensuous color fields, so neatly tailored to its temporary exhibition space?” are questions on the mind of anyone who has made the pilgrimage to St. Joe.*

Corner detail view of "Springtime in Winter" in the Esson Gallery at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art. Photo: Andrew Birgensmith

Notes:
*St. Joseph, Missouri, is about an hour's-drive from downtown Kansas City, Missouri.

-re-

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