Collaboration with Denise Bookwalter

Sheathing : Cloth as Shelter

Site-specific installation as a direct response to our book, Lining : Skin to Cloth, reconfigured in different venues.

2016-2018

Originating from the protective architecture of fabric — such as tents and coats, core components of the project include a room sized canvas and silk tent, two jackets, two blankets, and a suite of prints on handmade paper.

Sheathing : Cloth as Shelter was developed during residencies at Penland School of Crafts, Small Craft Advisory Press, and Constellation Studios, where it was exhibited in 2016.

A second iteration of this project was installed at the OL Guild space in Des Moines, IA, in 2016.

A solo exhibition at Western Carolina University Museum of Fine Art in 2018 was accompanied by a site-specific window installation in the atrium of the museum.

Sheathing explores textiles as shelter, warmth, and protection. Using the 60 X 80-inch measurements of a queen bed, the artists constructed a fabric tent of printed canvas lined with resist dyed silk. Inside the tent is a platform bed covered with two hand embroidered felt blankets. The walls are lined with bed sized woodblock prints on artist made handmade paper. The printed motifs of the installation are derived from embroidery patterns, fair isle knits, scans of wool and silk fiber, and cotton bolls.

Constellation Studios
Lincoln, Nebraska

2016

Eight 60 X 80-inch woodblock prints on handmade paper, 20 hand screen printed banners lined with hand dyed silk, 2 embroidered wool blankets, 2 bed jackets with rabbit fur lined pockets.

CATALOGUE:

Bookwalter, Denise and Running, Lee Emma, Sheathing, Blurb, October 5, 2016

Olsen-Larsen Galleries alternative exhibition space, OL Guild
Des Moines, Iowa

2016

This alternative space is a vacant gas station, the office of which is a window-lined room, 70 X 90 inches. The tent was installed in this space.

Lining: Sheathing

Western Carolina University Fine Art Museum
Cullowhee, North Carolina

2018

All of the components from previous exhibitions were included, in addition to a 3-story vinyl window site-specific installation that filled the atrium of the Fine Arts Center.