My friend and recent AIB MFA in VA graduate, Stacey Piwinski is in the the early stages of her latest work, which is a portrait of me. This work-in-progress is a continuation of the series of portraits she produced as part of her graduate thesis. Stacy employs personal objects as well as stories provided by the subject as source materials in the creation of her fiber based portrayals. For my portrait, I handed over 28 of my cherished t-shirts (some of which date back to my early days as a freshman BFA student 19 years ago).
We took the opportunity of being together at the MFA residency to continue the dialogue that has been going on since she started this piece a few months ago, which was also my first opportunity to see the work. According to Stacey, the two woven panels pictured above are only half of the material she intends to weaver for this piece and the work’s form is yet to be determined. I feel honored that Stacey chose me for this portrait and I’m looking forward to see how it evolves in the coming year.
Here’s a video of Stacey talking about her work and experience in the AIB MFA in Visual Arts program.