grandma’s family tree was a wall of photos is a collaborative project led by artist, Andrea Vail, that honors entryway walls adorned with family photos, the muscle memory of intergenerational handwork, and sharing space to strengthen community.
Drawing inspiration from the 22nd Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition’s curatorial themes—”senses of kinship and belonging” and “diverse roots, complex connections, and entangled relationships”—Andrea will lead a community weaving session using picture frames, photo paper, and thread. This floating event welcomes participants to spend the full evening creating or just a few minutes to weave a single section. The culmination of our collaborative handwork will serve as a record—a snapshot of a particular moment in time together—holding space for our diverse and complex relationships with one another and Appalachia.
The finished artworks will hang in the Moskowitz Gallery nook. Over time, the color of our woven paper will slowly shift–the chemical makeup of the silver gelatin paper changes with the influence of time and sunlight–transitioning from white to pale greens, then dark purplish-black. Hints of our fingerprints might remain present, and the areas not exposed to light, hidden under warp threads, will remain unchanged.
This project is open to ages and all experience levels and will use basic weaving techniques.
Artist Statement:
Through collecting pre-owned objects, manipulating textiles, and engaging communities from which the materials came, I often become the second-hand owner of a first-hand experience. My practice interrogates our desire for mass-produced “stuff” in pursuit of happiness and the ironic emptiness to which it leads. My hope in reworking textile objects is to produce a distinctive experience–visual seductiveness, known hand, and inherent generational muscle memory–as a counterbalance to throwaway culture.
About the artist
Andrea Vail is an interdisciplinary artist based in Sugar Grove, NC, exploring textiles’ inherent collaborative nature in an increasingly disconnected world. She weaves tapestries and creates knotless netted, tied, and crocheted sculptures with discarded materials, often inviting community participation throughout the process.
Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues such as Form & Concept in Santa Fe, NM; Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, NC; Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan, AL; Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC; Zepster Gallery in Brooklyn; Co-Prosperity Sphere in Chicago; and Toricho Art Festival in Fujisawa City, Kanagawa, Japan. She has received support through regional and state grants including Watauga Arts Council and North Carolina Arts Council, and residencies with Goodyear Arts, McColl Center for Art + Innovation, and Elsewhere Museum.
Vail earned a BFA in Fibers from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, an MFA in Craft/Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University, and an advanced graduate certificate in Nonprofit Administration from Appalachian State University.
