Our 7th annual exhibition Women Pulling at the Threads of Social Discourse: Don't Be Absurd asked the 117 participating artists - more than ever before! - to reflect on Absurdist works by Beckett, Kafka, Camus, Saramago, and de Beauvoir. Through the works created for Don't Be Absurd our artists explored how they connected, interpreted, and presented absurdity within the constraints of a circular shape and fiber art.
Our fifth Q&A roundup features CAMP artists Lydia Viscardi and Mabelin Castellanos, alongside artists Marjan Shariat, Monica Czukerberg, Nabila Valera, and Nanilee Robarge.
Is this your first time being in The Women Pulling at The Threads of Social Discourse exhibition series? If yes, what drew you in? If not, how many have you been in - and what are your thoughts over the different editions?
Lydia Viscardi: No. I have been in all of the shows except the first one. Each of the shows have dealt with aspects of social discourse. I particularly liked working on a sculpture for This is Not a Doll's House. Family Constellation, my mixed media hanging sculpture includes the father, the largest and brightest star, the diminutive and elegant silver toned mother orbiting around her golden hued husband and the children off in the outer limits. Growing up as I did in the early days of feminism with women encouraged to be independent, my traditional homemaker mother was a confusing role model for me.
Mabelin Castellanos: No.
Marjan Shariat: Yes. This is my first time participating. What caught my attention was its deep, philosophical theme, which resonated with my collection.
Monica Czukerberg: This is my third time participating in this exhibition, and it has been a very positive experience each time. I feel that the proposal becomes more interesting and challenging every time, and I would love to continue participating in the future.
Nabila Valera: This is my first time sharing the experience with you. It was interesting to me to have a different approach in the making of the art. My work tends to talk to me after it is done or in the middle of the process and then... I get to have an interpretation of piece and myself, the fact of starting a project with a specific idea and to be thinking in a book was new to me and I was curious of the development of that.
Nanilee Robarge: This is my second time to participate. Both editions intrigued me with the thoughtful and inspiring call for entries and it was exciting to think about being a part of a larger installation. Both times provided me with a different and exciting way to approach my work.
Each edition of this fiber series asks artists to respond to particular literary classics, who did you select for this year and why?
LV: All Men Are Mortal by Simone de Beauvoir. I chose this book as it is about an artist and her struggle with the idea of fame, wealth and mortality.
MC: Saramago.
MS: I chose Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus. What caught my attention was the exhibition’s theme, which deeply resonated with my artistic concerns. My work, much like Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, explores profound human questions around suffering, death, and the search for meaning. Just as Camus portrays Sisyphus’ endless struggle against an indifferent universe, my stitched fabric portrait reflects the human effort to express grief and mend emotional wounds. The conceptual parallels between my
piece and the exhibition’s theme made me feel a strong connection to it.
MCz: I chose the book The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka because, out of the entire list, it was the only one I had read before, many years ago. Seeing it listed again made me excited, so I decided to read it once more — and it was the right choice, as I discovered new things I hadn’t understood in the same way back then.
NV: I selected Franz Kafka with his book Metamorphosis because I remember the moment I was reading it, thinking how absurd it is to live your life isolated just because of being different because your self is asking for a change and no one around it accepted it, I wanted to show an opposite view of the situation and make a piece that speak about companion in the path of life, no matter how different we are from each other, future can be uncertain and challenging but with the good support we become strong and wiser about the perception of our nature.
NR: I did two pieces- one responding to “Blindness” which gave me a chance to study both the film and book and then use some of the images and colors to create a visual response to the COVID Pandemic. The second piece builds from The Myth of Sisyphus- I have been musing on the role of an older female artist and how to make sense of the continued creation of work- and indeed it often feels like rolling that rock up the hill only to have it roll back down.
What do you feel about the shape constraint?
LV: I have wanted to do something with the vintage rug that is part of my piece, so the required round format was a good opportunity. I don't like art assignments but Don't Be Absurd gave me the opportunity to address the theme of mortality which is one to which I am drawn.
MC: Hate it.
MS: It resonated with the theme.
MCz: I thought it was a great idea to require a circular format, as it adds an extra challenge when creating the piece and pushes us out of our comfort zone. I believe this is part of what makes participating in these exhibitions so interesting.
NV: Shape was another factor that called me to make this piece, another challenge because I have never worked with round shape before and I also liked the opportunity to create a kind of peephole for the viewer.
NR: More of an interesting and challenging constraint than limiting - and I have never worked round before so another new and different approach prompted by this exhibit for me.
At the gallery, we are always interested in knowing how the actual process of making the work affects you - please explain, if you can, what is on your mind while making your piece?
LV: While working on this piece I heard an interview on NPR - sorry not to have names. The discussion was
about billionaire’s obsession with living forever via exploration of life on another planet or cryopreservation rather than funding research on Alzheimer's, dementia and many of the declining health problems most elderly experience. The question was raised doesn't the fact that we are mortal make life more precious? Would you really want to live forever?
The rug I used in my piece (maker unknown) was a gift from my mother and it was worn and fragile. It
featured a mariners star, a navigational compass, with a central image of a sailboat, reminding me of my father who was a lifelong sailor. Repurposing the old, damaged rug made me think about my deceased parents who were both rug-hookers.
The central image in Show of Hands is a night sky with constellations in the form of hands holding objects that are fragile and temporal - money, hair, a feather, a tooth, and a flower. I was channeling my visit to San Marco in Florence, Italy. Fra Angelico's paintings on the walls of the monks' cells include floating hands.
MC: [The a]drenaline rush while putting the design together and relaxation while executing it with the sewing machine.
MS: The theme of this exhibition was deeply compelling and thought-provoking for me, as it aligned closely with my inner artistic concerns. In this piece, I have tried to portray human sorrow and suffering—not as something superficial, but as a grief that rises from the depths of the soul. Just as Camus, in The Myth of Sisyphus, illustrates the endless struggle of man against an indifferent universe, I have sought to narrate an inner battle through fabric and stitching: a struggle to express pain, to mend invisible wounds, and to find meaning within meaninglessness.
MCz: While creating the piece, I wanted to clearly show the contrast between color and black and white, between the vibrant and the decaying, between harmony and chaos. I felt excited as I worked on the piece, seeing how this idea gradually took shape.
NV: While making the piece I try to be calm and stay true to the whole idea, I go step by step trusting the design and the materials I decided to work with, there is always ups and downs in the making that might affect the direction, improvising makes me a bit nervous but i am learning to trust myself there too. I have days I woke up very connected to the creating process and can work 8 hours straight, other days not so much and even sometimes I have to cover the piece with a blanket because I need some distance from it. I love the moment when I realize a piece is done, it feels like waking up and then i am able to observe as a viewer, it is a joy.
NR: The initial planning of the works involved a lot of reading, thinking, and sketching- not unlike preparing for a term paper or talk. Once I began, the process was pretty fluid and automatic. I was working with needle felting as a technique so lots of repetitive motion and the chance to stab out some of my less positive thoughts about the day or the news cycle.
What inspires you?
LV: The natural world and human behavior - the good, the bad and the ugly.
MC: Fabric pieces, their patterns, and colors.
MS: My inspiration comes from the shared human experience—sorrow, suffering, and the endless pursuit of meaning in an unresponsive world. Tears, pain, and the act of mending wounds are, to me, symbols of resilience and reconstruction. Literary and philosophical works, especially those of Camus, have taught me that even within absurdity, beauty and meaning can be created. This perspective has been the driving force behind this piece.
MCz: What inspired me was the idea of creating something like a yin-yang, where the two halves are completely opposite but must be united, as they complement and need each other to form a whole and a sense of balance.
NV: I love textures but not only the ones you can create on the piece that only your eyes can touch but also the moment of working with them, the touching, feeling how they smell and thinking where they came from, how the fiber was extracted. At the moment, I like clean lines and short color pallets, simple images that come to my mind when I listen a salsa song for example. I also love traveling and take pictures of details, closed ups, in those short angle frames there is always an intention that calls me.
NR: Nature. Problem solving- both creating a piece to fill a need, and the process of figuring out how to do so. Collaboration.
Can you let us know about three fiber artists who have helped shape your work?
LV: Louise Bourgeois, indigenous textiles and crafts from Mexico, Africa and folk art from around the world.
MC: N/A.
MS: This was my first experience sewing my painting onto fabric and I had never done this before. The theme and technique of this exhibition was a good excuse for this new experience.
MCz: Evelyn Politzer, Jen Clay, Aurora Molina and alina rodriguez
NV: I would say the main artists that help me shape my work are from a Venezuelan indigenous community that is called WAYÚ, you can find them in Colombia and Venezuela, they were my first approach to the fiber art, working with a technique very similar to the punch needle. As I mentioned before, musicians are very present in the making process. Salsa, Bolero, Bachata had shaped my work in terms of images, colors, feelings...
NR: Adela Akers, Lia Cook, Katherine Westphal.