Rena Wood – FY23 Individual Artist Fellowship Craft Recipient
By Krishna Adams, Director of Visual Arts, Craft, Media, and Design –
Rena Wood of Cookeville received the fiscal year 2023 Individual Artist Fellowship (IAF) in craft. She uses intricate hand embroidery and other textiles to create her art. Wood stirs curiosity and contemplation through her visual representations of intangible concepts such as time, memory, and legacy. Her textiles are exquisitely detailed and are frequently fashioned through repurposed vintage material, paying homage to traditional handwork sewing. Time-honored textile designs inspire her embroidered patterns, yet they also suggest organic patterns one might encounter using a microscope, further prompting the viewer to imagine connections between art and nature.
“Cellular Memory questions where and how memories are held in our body; it suggests that our memories are what make us who we are as individuals. These embroidered surfaces are precisely stitched on the front yet depict a different story on the reverse side; intentionally tangling masses of thread that represent the forming, re-forming and fading of memories.” –Wood
Wood received a B.F.A. in Fibers from the Kansas City Art Institute and an M.F.A. from the Department of Craft/Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Since graduating in 2013, she has continued to refine her techniques and designs of what she likes to term “stitched paintings.”
Wood is the Assistant Professor of Fiber Art in the School of Art, Craft & Design at Tennessee Tech University’s Appalachian Center for Craft in Smithville, TN. Previously, she was a Visiting Instructor at Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, PA; and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. As a fiber arts educator, she has taught workshops on embroidery and fiber at art centers and craft schools throughout the country. She has been an Artist in Residence at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft in Houston, TX; Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN; and at the Craft Alliance in St. Louis, MO. Her work has been shown nationally in solo and group exhibitions. She was also awarded the Joanne Purrington Folley Memorial Award for Excellence in Needlework at Fiber Art International in 2016.
“My work gives physical form to the ephemeral sense of memory. The time I spend working is marked by each stitch, each knot, and each repetitive act of my hands. The result of my slow and repetitious handwork connects my process to the biological phenomena occurring all the time, gradually growing, multiplying, or deteriorating. I use stitching to create drawings on the surface of cloth to show a suspension between formation and falling apart, the acts of remembering and forgetting, and to represent time passing and time stopped. I am intrigued by ideas about the visual aspects of how memories might appear in our brain and the changes that occur as memories are lost. I believe that textiles have the power to hold the histories of the past and the presence of the makers.”–Wood
The Individual Artist Fellowship (IAF) in Craft recognizes and acknowledges an outstanding professional artist who by education, experience, or natural talent, engage in a particular art form or discipline and resides and works in Tennessee. Different out-of-state adjudicators, who are experts, review all submitted applications each year. The IAF is a competitive grant, and the Arts Commission encourages artists to apply again if they do not receive the grant. Wood’s advice to artists considering applying for an IAF is never to underestimate their work or the possibility that they are chosen. Wood plans to use the funds awarded to assist with the cost of maintaining her studio practice, upgrading materials, and tools, and costs surrounding the shipping and installation of artwork at Leedy-Voulkos Art Center in Kansas City, MO, later this summer. Her work will be displayed in the Sarratt Gallery at Vanderbilt University from January 9-March 3, 2023. Find out more about Wood’s work here.
