Lialia Kuchma follows her muse: tapestry art and photography (05/19/02)

Lialia Kuchma follows her muse: tapestry art and photography

by Cynthia Quick

CHICAGO - In many ways, Lialia Kuchma's life reflects the tapestries she weaves. Strands of color become intertwined - some are dropped and picked up later, while others are carried throughout influencing those they touch. The recurring strands of Ms. Kuchma's life and art are family, nature, and her Ukrainian heritage - its people and its search. They propel and shape her work as a photographer and tapestry artist.

Born in Ukraine, Ms. Kuchma was raised in the Ukrainian Village of Chicago - in its church, school and community. She attended the University of Illinois at Champaign and graduated with a bachelor of fine arts in 1967. Following graduation, she focused on printmaking and did independent studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and with master of calligraphy Reggie Ezell and master of Ukrainian decorative wood inlay Petro Iwachniuk. In 1975, her transition toward tapestry began.

For over 20 years, tapestry has been the primary medium through which Ms. Kuchma has followed her muse - creating dynamic images, both abstract and figurative, in vivid color. Other art forms, in particular photography, have provided an ongoing counterpoint.

For eight years, Ms. Kuchma, together with Darya Bilyk and Oksana Teodorowycz, was engaged in a major project working on the decorative elements in the newly constructed Ss. Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church under the direction of Maestro Ivan Dykyi - employing stencils, gold leaf, free-hand iconography - and documented each stage photographically. Her subsequent photographic series, "Celebrations," revisited the ancient rituals still celebrated in the Ukrainian Church, such as the blessing of the fruit and the carving and blessing of the ice cross as part of the Feast of the Epiphany.

She has recently completed over 140 black and white portraits as part of a collaborative oral history project with Irene Antonovych, titled "Generations Project," a documentary of Ukrainians in Chicago.

Ms. Kuchma's tapestries and photographs have been exhibited at Art Space, Artemesia Gallery, Evanston and Kansas City art centers, Textile Art Center, Tapestries Gallery, Fermi Lab-Wilson Hall Gallery, and the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, among others. Last year her work was featured as part of the group exhibit "The Art of the Craft: 12 Artists Interpret Their Cultural Roots," held in November at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York.

Ms. Kuchma has participated in national and international exhibitions, including the "1998 American Tapestry Biennial," "Fiber '97" in Chicago, "Currents '95" and "Fiberart Inter-national '95" at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.

Her work is in the permanent collections of the Illinois State Museum, the Governor's Mansion in Springfield, Ill., the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago, as well as private residences and the corporate collections of Fel-Pro, Harris Bank, 1st Security Federal Savings Bank, Jameson Realty and Nutra-Sweet.

Ms. Kuchma has recently been appointed chairperson of the Art Committee at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. She was also selected to be a member of the Art Committee at the Ukrainian National Museum in Chicago.

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Tapestries by Lialia Kuchma were recently on exhibit in Chicago's Wood Street Gallery in a show of contemporary furniture and fiber art titled "The Artists's Hand," held on March 9-April 20.

Forming part of the exhibit was the stunning wool tapestry - Luke 1:35 (Part I and II), which has been characterized as transcending its medium to become pure light and color. Other pieces by Ms. Kuchma were "Trees Talking" and six wool miniature pieces whose essence resonates color and energy.

What follows is the artist's statement, an eloquent expression conveying Lialia Kuchma's love of the craft and conceptualization of her particular art form, the sources of inspiration for her work, as well as reflections on style and form.

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For me, weaving is a love affair - love of the material, the loom, the process, the history, the final tapestry. It is the touch of the strands of wool, the way they absorb light, how the color makes me feel. It is the substance and stability of my all-wood eight-foot loom; the free and regenerative nature of the process.

I enjoy creating monumental works, which can be totally engaging to view, and, at the same time, intimate and personal. It typically takes three to four months to complete an 8-foot-square piece - woven strand by strand. For those not familiar with tapestry, the warp is the "skeleton" of the structure that disappears beneath the body of the fiber. The weft forms the decorative scheme on the surface. In tapestry, the weft is woven by hand, section by section, according to an original drawing or cartoon which provides the pattern for the work at hand. In my work, the weft is wool and the warp cotton.

The inspiration for my work lies everywhere - in friends, nature, faith, experiences. But, it all begins at the loom. The next work often takes shape in my mind as I am at the loom completing the one in progress. In my earlier work, the subject matter reflected my interests and could be clearly identified - portraits, red dogs, calligraphy. More recently, I work with landscapes, abstract and spiritual concepts. Each piece has its own "textural poetry."

My early work reflects a decidedly figurative style and narrative form. Still, during these periods I found myself seeking a non-traditional image as a sensual response to my feeling and understanding of what was about and within me.

While I have worked in other media, the choice of tapestry meant a purity of color and rawness of material that could aggressively emerge from any angle. Each strand has become a visual extension of time, a metaphor drawn and woven repeatedly through the larger body, always demanding attention as it moves in its direction to complete the final piece.

I came to tapestry from printmaking, where I was disappointed in the color: It is the personal, emotive content of my tapestry, compelled by the familiar and unfamiliar associations of shapes before me. Strands of yarn resonate color for me, their tactile property complements sensuous elements to weave in.

In my work, the black line has served me as a codifier of the representational, as a boundary containing colors and now, most recently, it has loosened itself, exploding before the colors, branching, suddenly these lines are conduits of energy weaving among themselves. I anticipate these strands will thread themselves through time and harmonies to recreate a universe of forms as only tapestry by nature, is capable of doing.

The French tapestry artist, Jean Lurcat, once said the "tapestry is an essentially mural object, going hand in hand with architecture." Tapestry complements and is completed by its environment. In that regard, I have a great respect for space.

As a tapestry artist, I also feel connected to its long history. Tapestry is still being done in much the same way as it was in 3000 B.C. - the same tools, pedals, harnesses, treadles, the same means. It is a nomadic kind of art, one that moved with its makers and, when unrolled, created the continuity of home.

While I have achieved the mechanical skills needed to successfully express my thematic or narrative projects, I do not feel I am ever not learning. Tapestry weaving is at a particular disadvantage compared to other media because of its slowness, but the challenge to produce the strong expressive image reflective of my own interests in a medium whose very physical properties inspire me is unyielding. Interest and influences are in the commonplace; the lines and markings in the branches of trees, in calligraphic shapes, tar in the streets; in the transitoriness of seasons, colors, emotions, light; in the fecundity of myth and imagination, of conflict and of harmony and in the representations of friends, family, self. The work is accomplished if it speaks not only back to me, but to others, when somewhere in its own life it begins a dialogue.

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