Xenobia Bailey

Xenobia Bailey (born 1955) is an African-American fine artist, designer, Supernaturalist, cultural activist and fiber artist best known for her eclectic crochet African-inspired hats[1] and her large scale crochet pieces and mandalas.[2] She has said that her specialty is crochet and needlecraft.

Xenobia Bailey
Born
Sherilyn Bailey

1955 (age 64–65)
Seattle, Washington, United States
EducationUniversity of Washington
Known forFiber art

Early life

Born Sherilyn Bailey in Seattle in 1955, in the 80s she changed her name to Xenobia for the warrior queen of ancient Palmyra[3] and made her way to New York. She began her professional life as a costume designer for the now defunct Black Arts/West and earned a BFA in Industrial Design from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1977.[4][5][6] Affirmative action took her to the University of Washington[3] where, she says, "the whole world opened up to me." She discovered ethnomusicology, the study of music and culture from around the world. She followed it with courses in tailoring and millinery at Seattle Central Community College.[3]

In the late 80s, she worked for the CETA program as an art instructor, which led her to meeting master needleworker Bernadette Sonona. It is here that Xenobia advanced her skills and learned how to create needleworks without the use of a pattern or template.[4]

Work
Funktional Vibrations, mosaic, 2016. At the 34th Street station

African and Asian culture are strong influences for her work.[5] Her large scale crochet pieces and mandalas consist of colorful concentric circles and repeating patterns. Bailey's art work ranges from costumes, hats, wall pieces and newer digital images are "the far cry from the traditional shawls and doilies associated with the medium".[7] Her pieces are often connected to her ongoing project ''Paradise Under Reconstruction in the Aesthetic of Funk.''[2]

"To be an artist and be able to create things - it's like fireworks every time you think about something," says Bailey. "I try to get energy and movement from something that is not moving at all."[7]

Bailey's technique, of mostly circular rows of single crochet, forms a fabric classified as tapestry crochet in flat, geometric, highly-colored designs influenced by African, Chinese, and Native American and Eastern philosophies, with undertones of 1970s "Funk" aesthetic. Her signature stitch is a flowy line, as if it is dripping. She calls it the "liquid stitch".[3] Her hats have been featured in United Colors of Benetton ads, on The Cosby Show, and in the Spike Lee film Do The Right Thing[8] (worn by Samuel L. Jackson as DJ Mister Se[9] ñor Love Daddy). She credits her shift from hats to walls, to Chicago artist Nick Cave.[3] In 1999 Bailey's piece. "Sistah Paradise Great Wall of Fire Revival Tent (Mandela Cosmic tapestry of energy flow)." It was exhibited at Stux Gallery, Fall 2000. This particular piece was hand crochet with cotton acrylic yarns, with 10' high x 5' diameter. Larry Qualls took this photo of this amazing work. (Qualls, L. (1999). Sistah Paradise Great Wall of Fire Revival Tent (Mandela Cosmic tapestry of energy flow) [Photograph]. Contemporary Art ( Larry Qualls Archive), Exhibited at Stux Gallery, Fall 2000.) In 2000 Bailey received the Creative Capital Award in the discipline of Visual Arts.[10]

In 2003, her designs were featured in an Absolut Vodka advertisement entitled "Absolut Bailey."[11] Bailey has been artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, and the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation in New York City. Her work has been exhibited at the Studio Museum of Harlem,[12] the Jersey City Museum, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

As an addition to her ongoing project Paradise Under Reconstruction, she created a hanging installation in 2006 called Mothership 1: Sistah Paradise's Great Walls of Fire Revival Tent. This piece was created to cover the topic of absent historical documentation for African enslavement in America.[13]

Bailey was a 2018 Artist-in-Residence at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation in Charlotte, NC.

In September 2014, Bailey partnered with students from Boys & Girls High School in Brooklyn to design and produce furniture to furnish a home for the Historic Hunterfly Road Houses.[14] Sixty students, aged 14–17, designed three pieces for an imaginary couple moving into 21st century Brooklyn using recycled materials.[9] (Xenobia Bailey. (n.d.). Retrieved March 19, 2019, from http://www.abladeofgrass.org/fellows/xenobia-bailey/)

In 2016, Xenobia Bailey created a large-scale glass mosaic at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the New York City Subway's 34th Street – Hudson Yards station.[15] She named the piece Funktional Vibrations.[16]

Collections

Her work is in the permanent collections at Harlem's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Allentown Art Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Arts and in the Museum of Arts and Design.[17] (Xenobia Bailey. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://madmuseum.org/learn/xenobia-bailey)

Selected exhibitions

Solo
  • 2002: Xenobia Bailey: Paradise Under Reconstruction in the Aesthetic of Funk—Phase IV (January 18 - February 17)[18]
  • 2008: Jersey City Museum, [RE]Possessed, (June 16 - August 24, 2008)[19]
  • 2015: 34th St–Hudson Yards Station, Funktional Vibrations, Glass Mosaic, The Studio Museum in Harlem (Permanent Installation 2015)[20][21]

Group
  • 2015: Xenobia Bailey (1955, Seattle) is one of the artists in the exhibition 'Fiber: Sculpture 1960–Present' in ICA Boston, from October 1 till January 4, 2015. The exhibition also has a catalog in print form.[22][23]

Honors and awards

In 2000, Xenobia Bailey won a Creative Capital grant for her project, Paradise Under Reconstruction in the Aesthetic of Funk.[24]

References
  1. "Style Makers; Xenobia Bailey, African-Hat Designer". The New York Times. August 19, 1990. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  2. Museum, Brooklyn. "Mothership 1: Sistah Paradise's Great Walls of Fire Revival Tent". Brooklyn Museum. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  3. "The Supernaturalist – Xenobia Bailey and How She Got That Way" article by Jen Graves, in The Stranger, November 2011
  4. Hassan, Salah M (1997). Gendered Visions: The Art of Contempoary Africana Women Artists. Trenton, NJ: Africana World Press. pp. 19–23.
  5. "U.S. Department of State - Art in Embassies". art.state.gov. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  6. Xenobia Bailey: AFRICAN-HAT DESIGNER New York Times (1923-Current file); Aug 19, 1990; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times pg. 38
  7. Reed Miller, Rosemary E. (2002). Threads of Time, The Fabric of History. Washington, DC: T&S Press. p. 153. ISBN 9780970971302.
  8. Otfinoski, Steven (2011). African Americans in the Visual Arts. Facts On File, Incorporated. pp. 9, 10. ISBN 9780816078400.
  9. "A 21st Century Urban Rhapsody in Reconstructive, Funky Design - The Brooklyn Reader". The Brooklyn Reader. 2014-10-03. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  10. "Creative Capital - Investing in Artists who Shape the Future".
  11. Farrington. E., Lisa (2004). Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists. Oxford University Press, USA. pp. 253, 254. ISBN 019516721X.
  12. "The Bearden Project". The Studio Museum in Harlem. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  13. "Brooklyn Museum: Mothership 1: Sistah Paradise's Great Walls of Fire Revival Tent". www.brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved 2016-09-14.
  14. Creative Time. Funk: Xenobia Bailey http://creativetime.org/projects/black-radical-brooklyn/artists/xenobia-bailey/
  15. Metropolitan Transportation Authority. "7 Line Extension". Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  16. "NYC subway art you need to check out". Retrieved 2016-09-13.
  17. Bailey, Xenobia. "Museum of Arts and Design Permanent Collection". Museum of Arts and Design. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  18. , "EXHIBITIONS JULY 2001 - JUNE 2002." Annual Report (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), 2002, pp. 42–42, retrieved March 11, 2017.
  19. "Jersey City Museum | pendulum". pendulumswing.wordpress.com. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  20. "The Studio Museum in Harlem". www.studiomuseum.org. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  21. "MTA - Arts & Design | NYCT Permanent Art". web.mta.info. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  22. Fiber : sculpture 1960-present. Porter, Jenelle,, Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston, Mass.),, Wexner Center for the Arts,, Des Moines Art Center. Munich. 2014. ISBN 9783791353821. OCLC 878667652.CS1 maint: others (link)
  23. "Xenobia Bailey - AFRICANAH.ORG". AFRICANAH.ORG. 2014-09-25. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  24. "Creative Capital - Investing in Artists who Shape the Future". creative-capital.org. Retrieved 2017-02-28.

23. (Qualls, L. (1999). Sistah Paradise Great Wall of Fire Revival Tent (Mandela Cosmic tapestry of energy flow) [Photograph]. Contemporary Art ( Larry Qualls Archive), Exhibited at Stux Gallery, Fall 2000.) In 2000 Bailey received the Creative Capital Award in the discipline of Visual Arts.

24. (Xenobia Bailey. (n.d.). Retrieved March 19, 2019, from http://www.abladeofgrass.org/fellows/xenobia-bailey/)

25. (Xenobia Bailey. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://madmuseum.org/learn/xenobia-bailey)

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