Strings of thought

Learning looks different for everyone. For some, it looks like lectures, textbooks or cluttered whiteboards. For this group of University of Dayton artists and thinkers, it looks like wefts, looms and long conversation.

Over the summer, art and design professor R. Darden Bradshaw, graduate student Elise Abshire and undergraduates Casey Harner and Whitney Johnston took on a project in collaboration with the International Marian Research Institute, Marian Library and the Dean’s Summer Fellowship to create “Weaving Ways of Knowing Mary” — a Roger Glass Center for the Arts exhibition that deepened the artists’ understanding of Mary through discussion and weaving.

“I was really interested in Mary because I think there are a lot of people who do not see themselves reflected in the visual culture of Mary,” said Bradshaw. “I was really interested in exploring avenues of thinking that were more inclusive, and potentially creating space for people to see themselves reflected.”

Their research and work were guided by academic writings exploring Mary, fiber art and fiber processes.

“Everyone read and reflected individually before we came together,” said Bradshaw. “Then we wove together in community. We were all together, weaving and talking about the readings. And then at the end of the week, each person would reflect again on what changed for them.”

Through independent reading, group discussion and collaborative craftsmanship, they brought their ideas to life.

“You experience this death of nature every year, but it has to go away so it can come back the greener and the brighter. I feel like there's this connection with this Assumption of Mary, and this ability to return the spiritual way of being present.”

Silk and cotton yarn are layered together in Abshire's Mary Detained, creating a network of textural color throughout the piece. Loose thread spills from the hem; thick knitted flowers pop out from the fabric. But the vibrant hues are kept at arm's length from the viewer, separated by the chicken wire cage surrounding them.

“I didn't want my work to be accessible,” said Abshire, “I wanted it to be viewed from behind a wire.” Her piece, inspired by Kelly Lattimore’s Mother of God: Protectress of the Oppressed, represents those who may not see themselves reflected in Mary.

“In my image, the weaving is Mary,” she said. “She's back there with everyone. And the strings hanging off are supposed to be kind of messy, because I feel like the Church is messy, and it's not always a straight line for those who would fall behind this fence.”

Harner’s Assumed explores an abstracted meditation on the Assumption. Cotton, wool and nylon build upward in white and rich navy blue, forming an arrow-like ascent that reaches toward the heavens. Two muslin cyanotypes hang behind it, bearing leaf patterns printed onto the material with UV light.

“We see the same kind of representation over and over again. It really moved me to do something completely abstracted,” said Harner, “You experience this death of nature every year, but it has to go away so it can come back the greener and the brighter. I feel like there's this connection with this Assumption of Mary, and this ability to return the spiritual way of being present.”

Two Marys are featured in Johnston’s remembering your quiet grin — Holy Mary and Johnston’s grandmother. Nine woven bed sheets, some with clay feet peeking out from the covers, sit beneath a sweeping bed frame and a woven skirt below. Her materials — clay from her hometown, family patterns, fabric from her grandmother’s house, Depression-era feed sacks — root the work in domestic labor and generational care.

“I had really no experience at all with Mary before this. [She] had a much more inclusive, accepting, and even maternal energy than I had expected. I feel that I have a little bit of a blossoming connection now,” she said. 

Bradshaw’s tapestry, Nostra Signora del Ginkgo (Our Lady of the Ginkgo), collages Mary’s life in bold color, framed like an altarpiece. Bradshaw was inspired by works that offered diverse representations of Mary across age and race, as well as by those commonly excluded from visual culture. The colorful background represents the LGBTQ+ community.

Together, the four stepped outside their comfort zones, took creative risks, and experimented with new ideas, processes, and materials. The project was not just an artistic or academic venture, but an experience of growth. 

“I hope people are inspired to learn something new,” said Harner. “My biggest takeaway is to embrace complexity, embrace curiosity, embrace meandering, wandering thoughts. [I’ve wanted] to make everything so easy to follow. It doesn't have to be that simple. It can contain contradictions and complexities, and that makes it better.”

Photography courtesy Darden Bradshaw.