| Bio: "An MFA in Writing graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007), I have a background in visual as well as literary art. After earning a BFA in Painting from the University of Wisconsin in 2003, I chose to focus my creative energies on my lifetime passion for writing creative nonfiction when, inspired by Basquiat and his use of oil sticks, my large-scale abstract/figurative paintings became increasingly dominated by text. Finding I could get more words out of my head and into the world with technology, I have focused my creative energies on writing since 2004. For many years, I used my writing to document the personal using everything from dyed fabric to letters exchanged with my incarcerated brother. My thesis work, A Sentence in Letters, compiles 15 years of letters exchanged between my brother and I. Autobiographical in nature, the collection tells disparate tales of our shared upbringing under the same roof." |
Untitled 2003
By Tiffany Nicole Slade
Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Tiffany Nicole Slade, 2003. One-of-a-Kind.
10 x 8 x 4.875"; 99 leaves of cloth. Mixed media on hand dyed fabric with safety pins. Bound in padded fabric over boards with embellishments of sequins and safety pins. Cloth and safety pin closure. Signed and dated by the artist.
Tiffany Nicole Slade: "The book (Untitled, 2003) is comprised of a nonobjective collection of words on hand-dyed fabric. Each page features one embellished and hand-painted word depicted in acrylic paint, oil pastel, chalk, ink, and/or glitter. The idea was to match words with the personality of each dye and color environment. Having so many pages and using just one word on each page provided me an opportunity to play with language and showcase my vocabulary and interest in words as unique as the individual pages themselves. Some words are rarely used, yet meaningful, thought provoking, and provocative in their presentation. Words, as powerful and full of meaning as they are, are so often, in book form, relegated to stark and boring, sterile environments…plain white pages. I thought the backgrounds on which they featured in this book could provide dramatic backdrops for the stars of the show – the words themselves.
"Using bleach on sequin-adorned black fabric created the covers of the book. The distressed look of this fabric was so beautiful that I didn't need to do much to alter it…the tears just sort of invented themselves and all I wanted to do was add safety pins to secure the book. The pages want to burst out and a tool of security for centuries of women who have come before me is a safety pin. How fitting then, as a young mother when I created this book, that I would use a common tool of security: the safety pin to help secure my thoughts in this collection of words."
(SOLD) |
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