GRAAND RAPIDS, MICH.- Artist Maureen Nollette draws from personal experience to create her multi-media art, while also examining the underlying meanings attached to her materials, methods, and motifs.

Working with paper, thread, mesh, plaster, and adhesive vinyl, her art references craft techniques—such as quilting and sewing—that have traditionally been considered “women’s work.” Like many contemporary artists, she is drawn to time-consuming, repetitive processes that can also serve as a meditative practice. With these materials and methods, Nollette explores the appealing regularity and simplicity of grid systems and their place within both modern art and traditional textile crafts.

Quilts and other textile-based crafts have traditionally been considered of lesser value than the fine arts of painting and sculpture; as utilitarian practices lacking the intellectual content and uniqueness of the fine art object. Over the past fifty years increasing numbers of artists have successfully defied this hierarchy. The elevation of fiber and textile materials into fine art was pioneered by Claire Zeisler, Lenore Tawney, Sheila Hicks, and others in the 1960s. Since then, craft techniques have assumed parity with other art forms in museums and galleries, from the installations and sculptures of Lesley Dill to the category-defying productions of Nick Cave. The association of textile materials with craft and women’s work still lingers, but with an increased recognition of the historical biases involved.

Nollette’s two- and three-dimensional work challenges the historical value systems surrounding textiles and crafts by using commonplace materials that diverge from those used in traditional crafts or fine arts. She sews thread into paper instead of fabric, applies strips of adhesive vinyl to windows instead of canvas, and casts plaster to mimic gathered fabric. It is not only the devaluation of craft materials and techniques that concerns Nollette, but also our society’s pervasive devaluation of the labor process in favor of the finished object.

Nollette’s monotonous and deliberate artistic process is integral to her work. The final form of each piece represents an accumulation of her repeated actions, quietly reflecting the passage of time. In the installation with/without, the adhesive vinyl shapes could have been more efficiently generated mechanically, cut and applied from one sheet. But for Nollette, the process of applying by hand hundreds of vinyl strips to the glass is an essential part of the work.

This intensive labor, and temporary nature of the site-specific installations, are aspects of Nollette’s work that are grounded in the work of 1960s conceptual artists, who were critical of our culture’s emphasis on art’s monetary value and elevated status. Conceptual art sought to question the primacy of the art object, so that the idea behind the art (its concept) could be as important as its physical manifestation. Emphasizing the intangible concept as opposed to the physical object is a similar kind of reevaluation as Nollette’s honoring of the process of “women’s work” over the end product.

Though textile arts such as quilting and weaving have been assigned a different value by society than that given to “fine art,” they often incorporate the same kinds of repetitive elements and geometric shapes. Beginning in the 1960s, Minimalist painters such as Kenneth Noland and Agnes Martin sought to eliminate all representational content in their art, to let color and geometric line provide a direct experience, whether aesthetic, emotional, or spiritual. They endeavored to create art that did not visually refer to anything other than itself. By contrast, Nollette utilizes repeated abstract shapes, such as the chevron, as a structure for art that does refer outside itself.

Nollette’s installation with/without is comprised of rows of chevrons in a decorative pattern that covers a long expanse of street-level windows. The viewer’s range of vision is influenced or obstructed by the pervasive shapes, allowing the choice to either look at them, or through them. This idea of duality is also present in the symbolism of the chevron. The chevron is an angled shape that references the roof of a house, and historically served as an honorable ordinary that symbolizes protection. Honorable ordinaries were the traditional geometric shapes on European coats-of-arms that indicated the owner’s distinguished service to the king or ruling state. For Nollette, the chevron’s dual connotations of private home life and public service echo the grid’s dual presence in domestic craft and fine art.

Nollette’s work rejects the notion of art as a singular, perfect, or precious object. In thread pieces such as over/under, her grids are not completely uniform, as the basic structure has been overlaid by movements of the hand, retaining the human presence. This also parallels the look of handmade quilts, where straight lines are not required, and moreover made difficult by the pliable material. In her installation pieces ruffle(d) and box pleats, the lack of borders or frames gives a sense of seemingly unending continuation, as if we are seeing only a segment of a larger work that can not be perceived in its entirety.

The parallels between Nollette’s art and that of 1960s Minimalist and Conceptual art has more to do with a commonly-shared spirit than an historical homage. Many artists of that era sought to make art that was relevant to contemporary life, to use commonplace materials and a stripped-down aesthetic that focused the viewer’s attention on what was in front of them, to convey ideas which no words or symbols could adequately express. Nollette is working from a similar position, making art that is visually engaging and thoughtfully representative of her outlook and experiences as a twenty-first century artist and woman.