BIO

Polly Barton is a nationally recognized artist who has been working in fiber for forty years. Trained in Japan, she is known for working with traditional methods of binding and dyeing bundles of fiber to weave contemporary imagery. Her studio practice has shifted over the last fifteen years to incorporating a wide range of materials including pigment, soy milk, pastel, metallic threads, stitching, papyrus, and metal leaf.

“Fingering the thread whether in winding, weaving, tying, dyeing, stitching, always leads to the next idea.”  Her recent work has been weaving spun linen paper (shifu in Japanese) to create her own canvas.  

As a young artist, Polly Barton points to her formative job as the personal assistant to Helen Frankenthaler, from whom she observed the inner drive and resilience necessary for an artist. Working with Helen was an introduction to the challenges and rewards of the New York art world.

In 1981, she moved to Kameoka, Japan and lived in the religious heart of the Oomoto Foundation to study with master weaver, Tomohiko Inoue. She practiced tea ceremony, calligraphy and Noh Drama with Oomoto’s master teachers.

Barton continues to weave and shows her work on both coasts.  

Her work is in many collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Community Hospital Foundation of Monte Rey, the Cotsen Textile Traces Study Collection, and the Longhouse Reserve in New York. Hali Magazine, FiberArts, Surface Design Journal and American Craft, among others, have published her work. She is a member of the Textile Society of America, the Surface Design Association, the Handweavers Guild of America, the Textile Study Group of New York, and the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Association.

STATEMENT

DARE REVEL DIVE

The work in this show at Chiaroscuro Santa Fe July 2 - 31, 2021 spans five years and three bodies of work, none of which would be possible without the other. The four banners are a departure in their political and calligraphic imagery; the pastels joyous; and the woven paper canvases worked with pastel, pigment and metal leaf feel rebellious as they capture emotions. Abandoning old working patterns has pushed me with an urgency to evolve and dissolve constraints of the woven grid. Old working rules fade as an immediate and fluid satisfaction emerges deepening my commitment to the studio and to the meditative repetition in work.

Download Polly’s CV

Download Cover magazine’s article on Polly