UM Museum Unveils New Exhibition 'Fault Lines: Mary Zicafoose New Tapestries and Prints'

The University of Mississippi Museum unveils its newest exhibition, “Fault Lines: Mary Zicafoose New Tapestries and Prints,” tonight with an opening reception at 6 p.m.

“I think it’s for anybody who wants to see how someone takes basically a simple object and then converts it into this fantastic piece of art,” said Debra Nelson, event coordinator. “It’s almost like the sculptors who see something inside the piece of wood or the stone. She sees something and then can create it from these amazing, simple items that take an extraordinary amount of time and detail in order to be able to assemble.”
Nelson recommended visitors to “really look at all of the details because her work has such incredible depth to it.”
The exhibition is curated from three of Zicafoose’s recent bodies of work: “Fault Lines,” “Mountain for the Buddha” and “The Blueprint Series.”
“Fault Lines” features abstract pieces composed of vertical arrangements of blocks of color; “Mountain for the Buddha” displays tall pyramids inscribed with sacred symbols; and “The Blueprint Series” are up-scaled images of the artist’s fingerprints.
Each work is a threaded tapestry dyed and hand-woven by Zicafoose herself in a time-consuming process she defines as “Ikat.”

“Weaving is my medium, but creating decorative textile art is not my goal. Rather, it is my use of ‘Ikat,’ the complex technique of resist dyeing and over-dyeing fibers, that best defines my intent,” Zicafoose said on her website. “I create contemporary tapestry, pushing the boundary of this ancient art form, to investigate the intricacies of how we, as individuals, are tied to one another.”
The exhibition is featured in preparation for the eighth annual Oxford Fiber Arts Festival, a citywide celebration of the medium organized by the University Museum and the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council. The festival will be from Jan. 25 – 28, 2018.
Zicafoose will be in attendance for tonight’s opening reception and plans to return to Oxford in January for the festival, where she will give a speech on herself and her work.
Robert Saarnio, museum director, said he hoped the exhibition would not only bring more attention to Zicafoose’s work, but also to the University Museum.
“The more we do shows like Mary’s show… the visibility of the museum is rising and rising and rising. And every time someone learns about us, or relearns about us, they come in and they say, ‘Oh my God, we had no idea.’ That happens over and over and over again.”
The “Fault Lines: Mary Zicafoose New Tapestries and Prints” exhibition will be open until Feb. 3, 2018.
The University Museum is open from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.

By Zach Hollingsworth, an intern for HottyToddy.com. He can be reached by emailing zhhollin@go.olemiss.edu.