Of the three artists in this exhibition, BA Harrington most directly references actual objects from the past. Lineage draws inspiration from the ornately-carved dower chests that were presented to young women before they were married. Harrington also revisits the textiles traditionally stored within these chests: hand-stiched linens and needlework pictures women made to prove their domestic skills to possible suitors.
Lineage brings these textiles—and the labor behind them—out into the open. The brightly-colored embroidered shroud evokes the patterns on linens and needlework samplers, while the animated projection asserts the repetitive physical labor of sewing. Harrington’s installation makes visible what history has largely obscured: the artistic labors of women in seventeenth-century New England, where the maker’s hand is traditionally gendered as male.
BA Harrington is a candidate for an MA in art history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 2007, she received her MFA in woodworking.
