Textile Installations (1996-2007):
Influenced by the Couture Series, Cotton Candy Bunny Ears consists of seventy-one suspended sculptures, grouped to create a fluid moving contour. The site-specific design responded to the particular space in which it was to be exhibited, The University of Kentucky’s Tuska Contemporary Art Center – mirroring one of its dramatic curvilinear walls. Other influences included a swarm of bees or wasps, leaves blowing in the wind, and spring flowers, which were the antithesis of winter, the actual season during the exhibit. The Untitled work referenced anthropo- and zoomorphic characteristics to create unique sculptures. The forms were made by hand-sewing organza fabric to wire armatures, the latter being 3-dimensional contour line drawings.
For two consecutive years, I collaborated with Helena G. Mesa, my sister and a poet, as well as my mother, Elena Mesa, a fabric painter, to complete two installations. La Charada: Dreams & Images was based on the Cuban-Chinese game of the same name. It consists of forty transparent, hand-sewn, suspended gowns, which viewers can walk amongst. Each gown has a correlating haiku, a Charada image painted on silk fabric, and a dream image painted on ceramic tiles. Hunting Sweet Melons integrated poems and paintings with seven kinetic sculptures.
La Charada: Dreams & Images was funded by a Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith Fellowship.
Cotton Candy Bunny Ears and Hunting Sweet Melons were funded by two Morehead State University Creative Productions Summer Fellowships.
Influenced by the Couture Series, Cotton Candy Bunny Ears consists of seventy-one suspended sculptures, grouped to create a fluid moving contour. The site-specific design responded to the particular space in which it was to be exhibited, The University of Kentucky’s Tuska Contemporary Art Center – mirroring one of its dramatic curvilinear walls. Other influences included a swarm of bees or wasps, leaves blowing in the wind, and spring flowers, which were the antithesis of winter, the actual season during the exhibit. The Untitled work referenced anthropo- and zoomorphic characteristics to create unique sculptures. The forms were made by hand-sewing organza fabric to wire armatures, the latter being 3-dimensional contour line drawings.
For two consecutive years, I collaborated with Helena G. Mesa, my sister and a poet, as well as my mother, Elena Mesa, a fabric painter, to complete two installations. La Charada: Dreams & Images was based on the Cuban-Chinese game of the same name. It consists of forty transparent, hand-sewn, suspended gowns, which viewers can walk amongst. Each gown has a correlating haiku, a Charada image painted on silk fabric, and a dream image painted on ceramic tiles. Hunting Sweet Melons integrated poems and paintings with seven kinetic sculptures.
La Charada: Dreams & Images was funded by a Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith Fellowship.
Cotton Candy Bunny Ears and Hunting Sweet Melons were funded by two Morehead State University Creative Productions Summer Fellowships.