Friday night, Jenna Richards opened up Figure One to the community to showcase what she’s been working on during her residency along with some of her friends from Champaign-Urbana’s Spinners and Weavers Guild: Cathe Capel on the great spinning wheel and Molly Fay on the Good Wood weaving loom.
Richards, 24, has been practicing knitting and spinning for five years. She recently graduated from the Allen R. Hite Institute at the University of Louisville in Kentucky where she received a BFA in 3D studio.
In fact, it was in one of her 3D studio classes where she first became interested in knitting. Her professor, Adrienne Callander, would knit in the small, more informal art class, and over time, Richards and her classmates persuaded her to teach them how to knit.
Little did she know, she had a long, familial history with traditional fiber working. Her great-grandmother worked in a textile mill. “It’s really nice to have,” Richards says of her family ties to her practice. And even though Richard’s training and work — one of her first projects included her creating rag yarn by cutting up her catholic girls’ school uniform—is more formal, she is now focusing on fiber art, or fiber as it fits into intellectual art discussions, and not just utilitarian purposes.
When Richards first arrived in Champaign a year ago, she and boyfriend Ben Coors were stopping by Cream & Flutter due to Richards’ “dessert problem,” and very casually wandered into the attached space, Figure One, which was hosting its third annual artist in residency program at the time. Richards became interested in the space and applied to be an artist for its next summer residency.
Since her residency, which began on July 14th, she has enjoyed the “gift of time and focus” that the space has given her. Although she has a home studio, she says that it is “nice not to have the distraction of home.” Richards is the non-University of Illinois affiliated resident in the program.
Her aim with Friday’s demonstration was to reach out to the community and expose its members to looking at fiber, knitting, etc. differently. Like fiber art, the demo was an experiment — and a successful one, at that.
The demo started off slow, but that changed quickly. Many people just like herself a year ago found themselves slowly wandering in to see what was going on with all this equipment.
The vibe was super friendly and welcoming and the guests genuinely interested and attentive.
Although Richards was eager to demonstrate her fiber art to the wider community, she explains that her knitting and spinning background is very traditional and, “like all artists, [she’s] just figuring it out.”
What’s next for Richards? A MFA degree is on the “near-ish horizon.” You can check out more of her work and ongoing and upcoming exhibitions here.
The next (and final) demo from an artist in residency this summer is a design one led by Jade Williams on Sunday, August 23rd. Hers will also include fiber manipulation.
