S I S a L S I S T

134 Spring 2019 Issue 54 135

SISAL SIS TER

When American weaver Molly Haynes isn’t designing Haynes’ private practice home textiles, she’s exploring the celebrates sculptural weaves properties of ‘difficult materials’, that inhabit space using controlled she tells Denna Jones yet expressive materials

olly Haynes is snug inside design includes the first names of everyone her Brooklyn home and who works at Pollack as woven witness weaving studio on a to their collective achievements. Woven in blustery January day. Pennsylvania, the design of the upholstery- Her weaving loom and weight fabric fits within Haynes’ collections Bulgarian rugs once owned for Pollack, all of which borrow from and 02 by her maternal great-grandfather Boris accentuate the allure of ‘handmade’. MElisayeff lend visual warmth. A large oil Haynes’ private practice celebrates painting by Elisayeff­­—abstract yet ordered sculptural weaves that inhabit space using horizontal registers of impasto paint—hangs controlled yet expressive materials. One of on a wall. Haynes’ family subliminally her fibres—sisal—was used by Françoise 01 Cliffhanger, handwoven 03 Bells II (detail), influenced her decision to become an artist, Grossen. Described as Grossen’s ‘difficult panel in sisal, cotton and handwoven wall hanging in wool from the Controlled sisal, cotton and wool from not only the great-grandfather she never material’, Haynes mastered sisal after she Landscapes series by the Controlled Landscapes met but her mother who sewed ‘crazy stopped trying to tame it. She buys loosely Molly Haynes, developed series by Molly Haynes, Halloween clothes’ for Haynes, and her spun spool-bound agave sisal from hardware exclusively for Colony developed exclusively for grandmother who once owned a Boston, stores. Sisal is alive for Haynes which is why Colony 02 Text Message (detail), Massachusetts fashion store. she speaks about it anthropomorphically: Molly Haynes for Pollack But it was mid-century female weavers ‘It’s unruly with a strong memory, and Associates Haynes discovered as a student at Rhode will suddenly burst into a fringe.’ Many of Island School of Design that made her Haynes’ weavings allow sisal to ‘burst’ out, decide to be a weaver. ‘I’m inspired by creating fringe ends that resemble horse Françoise Grossen, Lenore Tawney and tails. In her tapestry Wind Shaken the Sheila Hicks,’ she says. Haynes discovered curves occurred, says Haynes, because the these weavers when a classmate gave sisal ‘wanted to return to its spool’, and she her the catalogue from the 1969 ‘Wall allowed it to follow its imprinted nature. Hangings’ exhibition co-curated by Grossen’s belief that ‘the beauty of the textile pioneer Jack Lenor Larsen for material pre-exists’ guides Haynes, but her the Museum of Modern Art. ‘That book weavings also express the principle known changed everything,’ Haynes reflects. as Occam’s razor that simple solutions are After graduating in 2014 Haynes interned more often ‘correct’ than complex ones. with New York-based textile designer Lori Haynes made a discovery when she Weitzner who, like Mark Pollack, a founder moved into her first apartment. She of contract and residential textiles company gestures to her great-grandfather’s painting. Pollack Associates where Haynes now Unbeknown to her his subject was a works as a textile designer, is an alumnus of Bulgarian rug. She found his handwritten Larsen’s studio. notation: ‘Impression of a Bulgarian rug #2’ Text Message is a Haynes design on a stretcher bar on the painting’s flip side. for Pollack Associates. Inspired by an Sisal taught Haynes the value of yielding embroidered sampler—a ‘specimen of to the essential truth of natural materials. achievement’—from designer Alexander Her cadre of mid-century women weavers Girard’s collection at the Museum of influenced her sculptural forms and taught International Folk Art, Santa Fe, Haynes her the truth of reducing ideas to their updated the counted cross-stitch pattern essence. And so too the great-grandfather with emojis and weaving and textile terms. she never met bequeathed to her a love of Preserving the history of samplers which artistry and weaving. included their maker’s name, Haynes’ www.mollyhaynes.us

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