NEAR NORTH SIDE — The title of Michelle Alexander’s first curated group exhibition came to her in a dream.
Alexander woke up with the words “connective thread” lingering in her mind. With her background in fashion design, Alexander found that phrase deeply evocative. She started thinking about how one thread can break easily on its own, but a network of fibers can be almost like armor.
With that in mind, Alexander pitched the Near North Side’s Ivory Gate Gallery last June on an art show titled “Connective Thread.”
After months of work, the exhibit Alexander dreamed of opens Friday. Featuring art by Alexander and five other woman artists, “Connective Thread” will stay on view at Ivory Gate, 44 E. Cedar St., until June 8.
The show tackles womanhood, strength and vulnerability via a range of multimedia works, including crocheted flowers, expressive paintings and an almost-monstrous sculpture based on wedding dresses.
Between now and May 11, locals can also check out tiny related works made by three of the “Connective Thread” artists at Barely Fair in McKinley Park. As is fitting for an international exhibition of galleries at a 1:12 scale, the additional pieces are tiny: The tallest is about 6 inches, Alexander said.
To create the exhibition, Alexander reached out to artists she admired who were interested in exploring women’s experiences. Some of those who joined the show were, like her, based in Chicago; others were from as far away as New York.
As Alexander navigated her first time putting together a group show, she tried for the most part to let each artist take the reins on their own project, soaking in the opportunity to work with creatives she felt drawn to.
“I’m obsessed with their work,” she said.
While managing the exhibition, Alexander also put together her own piece: the wedding-dress inspired creation. She decided on a three-part artwork. It includes a photo of her mom’s wedding dress, which she called “The Mother,” and a photo of her sister’s wedding dress, titled “The Sister.”
The centerpiece, about Alexander’s feelings and experiences as an unmarried woman, is titled “The Pressure.” Alexander built a skin-like sculpture out of thin fabric, molded it with glue and stapled the sides to cinch the waist. Then she replicated the puffy, floral tulle sleeves from her mom’s wedding dress and the large tulle skirt from her sister’s. She attached those pieces to the “skin” — a way of showing herself being forced into wedding attire.
The overall effect is disturbing, and intentionally so, Alexander said.
It’s about “this milestone that women are supposed to get married. Then their life will be happier, easier and complete,” she said. “And these are things that have not happened in my life. And does that mean it’s any less than anybody else’s experience?”
The five other artists approached the tensions of womanhood — of strength and vulnerability, fragility and protection — through very different media.
Artist Lauren Seiden used paper to mold a sculpture that she then hardened and covered with graphite, illustrating how something fragile can become a shield. Michelle Grabner looked at ideas of the mundane and the idiosyncratic in a piece using porcelain janitorial supplies. Sam Jaffe based her work around crochet flowers. Carmen Neely used prints of personal journal entries. Adrianne Rubenstein painted red flowers based on the textile motifs of the ’80s and ’90s.
The exhibit’s diverse ideas about womanhood are especially relevant now, Alexander said.
“Just highlighting women artists, highlighting the complexities of our lives, that it’s not all good and it’s not all bad,” Alexander said. “Just really showing a full person, because so much is being taken away from us as we speak.”
But Alexander also said the exhibit shouldn’t feel exclusive to women. The experiences depicted in the art might be specific in some ways, but they’re also universal, Alexander said.
Alexander hopes that everyone who comes will find an artwork that resonates.
“I always hope that a viewer just finds one piece or has one moment of connection,” she said.
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