Lee Langdon

Show Title: “For Love of the World….”

Click on any image to enlarge and begin slideshow.

Photos of artwork by Jim Wright.

A statement by the Artist, Lee Langdon

I came across this poem by an Ojibwe woman, the late Charlotte Tall Mountain, at a particularly tough time in my life, in 2013.  I was taken by the series of phrases that captured how women contribute in this world not meekly, but by grabbing hold and persisting.  I wanted to share this poem with others, so I bought 50 bookmarks.

As a beginning textile artist, I also wanted to translate each phrase into a piece that would speak to people.  The first one “For love of a tree…” came together easily.  Others have needed three or four renderings to capture the emotion I was looking for.

Textile Art is a wide field, one of the oldest of the arts, yet it continues to re-invent itself.  My own interest comes in part from the desire to use found objects and recycled material.  Rather than starting from a sketch, I begin with pieces of fabric that help me to capture an emotion or a line of the poem. I am fascinated by new techniques and tools which I have applied here, learning all the way!

This show displays only some of the fourteen phrases in the poem.  The complete poem is included in a bookmark on the back of each piece, so that credit is given to Charlotte Tall Mountain, the inspiration for these works.