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Sandra Still,
education director at the Monterey Museum of Art, was the RUAP community
faculty for the spring semester of 2003. She presented two programs
on textiles. Throughout history, people have used textiles – and
the clothing made from them – to tell the story of who they are,
where they come from, and their status in life. Sandra explored these
topics in two lectures and workshops open to the public.
She holds a master’s degree in anthropology and museum studies from the University of Washington and has been on the staff of the local museum since 1989. Widely traveled and bilingual, she has had a longtime interest in textiles, fiber and clothing. Joan Weiner, RUAP coordinator, interviewed Sandra. |
| JW: The Community Faculty
concept enables RUAP to recognize the unique funds of knowledge held by
individuals in the arts who are making significant contributions to their
communities, particularly to youth. Will working on campus be different
from your experiences working with teenagers at the museum? SS: Absolutely. My work with the teenagers here revolves around learning about museums and art careers related to museums. They curate an exhibit and do all the work that builds up to the installation of the exhibit. At the university, I am using my interest and passion in the textile arts, and working with an adult audience. I got into museum work because I love folk art and I consider textiles/costumes to be a subset of folk art, and of my interest in anthropology. So here I am now an administrator and educator and my passion for textiles usually sits by the wayside. It's something I do on my own time. However, the teenagers and the adults are eager audiences and a joy to work with, just the content is different. |
| JW: Does the museum
do something similar – invite local people to share their knowledge
by giving lectures, etc.? I’m thinking of a lecture I attended that
featured local gallery owner Steve Hauk talking about art from the Central
Coast. SS: Absolutely. I often have guest artists or historians give lectures or gallery talks. I try to make them exhibit related. This past year we had nine such events. Often they are framed around a "Meet the Artist" if their work is on exhibit. And you're right, a couple of years ago Steve Hauk and Lila Staples did a talk that was in conjunction with an exhibit the artist of which I can't remember. But they put the artist in a historical/cultural context. |
| JW: Did you choose
to lecture and present workshops on textiles or were you asked to? How
did your interest in textiles come about? SS: Steven Russell and I were brainstorming about what I could offer as a community faculty. I mentioned that what I really love is textiles from a cultural perspective and that I'd wanted to put together a lecture/workshop series that would combine the historical/cultural with hands-on. What I think would be really fun is giving the participants a final project, where they put all the information and techniques together to create their own textile "power" piece. Anyway, I've been interested in textiles since my first trip to Puerto Vallarta when I was 8 years old. I saw the women of Mexico wearing beautiful handwoven blouses. And I saw the women of the village hand washing their clothing by the river using rocks. I noticed that each village dressed uniquely, and that all the people of the village dressed similarly, a way of culture-group identification. This fascinated me. I was in elementary school and at the time, it was our goal to dress uniquely! We thought that each of us is different and we tried to dress to make a personal statement. My goal as an elementary student dresser was completely the opposite of the Mexican villagers who wanted cultural identity rather than individual identity. In junior high school I had to take home economics classes and discovered that I was a very good seamstress. I love to sew. So I've always been fascinated by what people put on their bodies for clothing. And the great lengths that many cultures take to decorate the cloth that they put on. The Japanese shibori, the silks and cottons from India, the ikats of Central Asia, the weavings of ancient Peru, dragon robes from China, cuna cloth from Panama, kente cloth from Ghana, huipiles from Mexico and Guatemala, and on and on. |
| JW: You’ve got
a fascinating background that includes a great deal of travel. Did those
experiences inform your interests and your view of life? SS: Very much so. I learned in Mexico when I was 8 years old that communicating in another language is powerful! People are people and have similar basic needs, but our solutions to those basic needs are different and that makes us fascinating. We all need to eat and clothe ourselves but we do it so differently! And one isn't better than another! Our ethnocentric upbringing would have us believe otherwise. All cultures and people face similar situations with family structures, village or city life, economic decisions (barter or cash or credit) – but our way of solving these things, creating solutions is unique. Who is to say that our way of life is better than any other way? They are all just different. I lived in Sweden for a year after high school and I mistakenly had thought that being a European country, it would be a lot like my way of life in California. Western civilization, democracy and stuff. WRONG! It was far different than I ever imagined! |
| JW: Do you believe
that creating art is a significant social act? How should artists be prepared
to tackle critical questions of self-expression, community values, politics,
identity? What role do the university and the museum play in this process? SS: Creating art is personal, cultural and social. I think what is important here is that students be educated in the history of "art" making. Western civilization has values about art that are considerably different from Asian values or African values. Students need to understand the political and cultural context under which they are currently working and how that fits into the historical context.  There
is also the issue of aesthetics and aesthetic perception. The making of
art is valuable in that it also teaches that answers are not black and
white, right and wrong. Making art is a constant act of making choices,
refining, making decisions, fine-tuning. And there are many shades of
gray in between the black and white, right and wrong. Making art, I believe, teaches us a tolerance for ambiguity, a tolerance for our differences when we see how we each make different decisions given the same art assignment. How we make different decisions when we're from different cultures. The university's role and the museum's role are both to shape and inform students but we do it in different ways. The university has a formal education role – that of traditional teacher imparting wisdom and experiences to the student. I think it is the university's role to give formal training – in art history and aesthetics. From a very traditional point of view, this has always been through the eyes of Western civilization and it certainly shouldn't be that way. In that regard, I think CSUMB is doing some interesting stuff by breaking away from that tradition. However, I don't see some of the necessary basic stuff being covered so that students do get a cultural and historical perspective on where they are in time. The museum's role is informal education. We provide the backdrop by putting art on the walls. We make decisions about what art is exhibited, how it is curated, how it is installed. Then, visitors shape their experience by what they bring to their viewing. Their experience is informed by what relevance they perceive the art as having in their lives and knowledge they bring with them. There have been studies on how the museum "educates" the public and it is fascinating. In addition, we provide text panels with information about the art. Docents are available daily to answer questions. And we offer the occasional lecture and/or gallery tour. |
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