Damage as Opportunity: The Art of Winnie Van Der Rijn
Winnie van der Rijn is a multi-disciplinary artist of opportunity–collecting materials, experimenting with techniques and pursuing her curiosities. Her art practice includes textiles, sculpture, collage and collaboration (which she considers its own art form). A life long learner, Winnie graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989 with a BA in Sociology. She has studied printmaking, sculpture, metalsmithing and Marxist theory. In addition, Winnie has explored weaving, machine knitting, bookmaking, altars, exploding picture boxes, automata, shoe making, millinery, sewing, fusing, stamping, metal weaving, resin, riveting, precious metal clay and mixed media. She is wildly curious about how things are made. Her work can be seen at www.winnievanderrijn.com and on Instagram @winnievanderrijn .
Citation: Mohan, Urmila and Winnie van der Rijn “Damage as Opportunity: The Art of Winnie Van Der Rijn.” The Jugaad Project, 2 June 2021, thejugaadproject.pub/winnie-van-der-rijn [date of access]
“Damage is a turning point - inviting response. When something is damaged I have a choice. I can try and repair the damage - heal, fix, restore OR I can embrace the damage, lean in and take the opportunity to reimagine - interfere, evolve, change.”
Urmila: How did your life and circumstances lead you to working as an artist, and specifically, with fabric or fiber?
Winnie: I was born a maker. In elementary school if there was an option to complete a creative project instead of a book report, I would choose the creative project EVERY TIME.
I have been incorporating fiber in my work for many years. I am an artist of opportunity working with what I find, what’s available. This flexibility made it fairly easy for me to adapt during the stay at home orders at the beginning of the pandemic. I was in California without access to most of my equipment and supplies. But I had a needle and thread and a few shirts, embroidery floss, a sewing machine, some soluble material and a bit of canvas. Fiber and textiles are always around.
After the election of 2016 my work became increasingly political and I found the textiles were a natural fit for this work. I began using historically female handwork techniques and ubiquitous materials as a form of protest- an activation of the suburban PTA. I started imagining the PTA as a feminist sleeper cell. Moms are the source. We are birthing and raising the future. Multiple of my cohort started mailing political postcards and creating grass roots organizations. My contribution was art. For this piece I took a neutral cardigan (what one might consider a staple of suburban PTA mom wardrobe) and added found street sweeper bristles activating it into armor.
Urmila: Fabric often implies a close relationship or intimacy with the body as clothing and ‘skin’. Would you say that this intimacy is important in your works, in general?
Winnie: This is tricky - I do like working with used materials that have been on a body. I like sweat and stains - the humanness and history they add to fabric. Clothing in particular has a function. The wear and tear of use add to the fabric while simultaneously breaking it down and damaging it. (there seems to be a transference of self onto/into the object- a shadow or ghost of use- the worn-ness)
Much of my work is interested in finding the essence of a thing- deconstructing, investigating and experimenting. I am curious how things are made, why they are made and what they are made of. I think you have to take something apart to know what’s essential to its existence.
This piece, Sugar & Spice, is the result of a conversation with my (then) teenage son about his gender studies class. He used the term ‘girl box’ and that led to me considering the box(es) society creates for girls and women- the limitations, how society defines gender, the building blocks of ‘girl’ and the early indoctrination to force ‘girls’ into the box. Both my daughter and my son contributed to this piece.
I made my second ‘girl box’ Production & Reproduction/a Uterus Purse, during menopause - a time in a woman’s life that her usefulness to society is considered diminished and she is made invisible & irrelevant. Is it a uterus that makes a woman? Is my uterus my greatest contribution? After my hysterectomy, I carried my woman-ness for everyone to see. I am more than the sum of my parts.
I am also interested in acts of wearing which I see as a public declaration of style and substance (beliefs). And I do use clothing in my work as a substitute for bodies.
I also work with objects that have been close to bodies. Personal detritus as an extension of self. Self as representative of society (I/me as us/we) I don’t really think of it as personal more as communal/societal- one of many - maybe intimate but universal.
Urmila: What is the role of ideas and media, in your process? I know this is a difficult question to answer, but how does one transform into the other, for instance through the paradigm of ‘deconstruction’ or deconstructive performance?
Winnie: As an artist of opportunity, I am open to possibilities. I collect materials, experiment with techniques, pursue curiosities, seek out visual stimulation and look for connections, intersections and overlaps. It’s a spinning Venn diagram that suddenly locks into place when all of the input mixes with an idea, resulting in the emergence of creative expression. My compositions unfold; design and construction happen simultaneously. The structure grows out of a conversation with the materials. I work in an infinity loop- idea-experimenting-making-activation-experience-artifact. My work exists in the realm of potential and possibility.
Urmila: The act of ‘dissolving’ carries connotations of transformative flux, liquification and fluidity. How do you respond to these terms/concepts, and are there any others that you would consider more applicable to your work?
Winnie: In addition to transformative flux, liquification and fluidity, my work with dissolving and dissolution is also about ritual cleansing, washing away, release, discovery, distilling to the essence, uncovering and catharsis.
as Discovery - At the beginning of the pandemic I made a mask out of soluble embroidery stabilizer (image 1). I then wore the mask on my daily walks for 5 days (35,159 steps). It was an experiment to see if I could dissolve the material with my exhalation - thinking about COVID transmission and the power of breath. It started to tighten and shrink around my face and then release a bit as the material dissolved. After the 5th day I stopped with a partially dissolved mask as the result (image 2). I needed to start wearing an actual mask on my walks. I made a second mask and dissolved it on a face using water from a spray bottle- the idea of the exhalations of some unmasked other (image 3).
as Catharsis- Mid-summer during the protests and ongoing stay at home orders, I made an alternate American flag Hanging on by a Thread/Coming Apart at the Seams. As a family we had joined a march in our area, done research, read articles, donated to organizations and had many discussions, but it never felt like enough. We were all frustrated. With everything happening in the world we needed a symbolic cathartic release. So, I made this flag and with the help of my children dissolved it on the front porch- I like to think of it as activism on the front porch. We washed away that which we wanted eradicated from the country and were left with a skeleton - upon which perhaps we can rebuild.
Washed Boy activated by Elijah van der Rijn (@ejilahvdr), photo taken by Sam Sanon (@samcsanon), shirt made in collaboration with Noah Pica (@no___duh)
as Ritual Cleansing- In 2019, while in Residency at the Textile Arts Center, I collaborated with artist & menswear designer, Noah Pica (@no___duh) to create a complete shirt out of the soluble embroidery stabilizer-Washed Boy. Noah’s work revolves around menswear and queerness. I created the material. Noah developed the pattern and constructed the shirt. My son, Eli, activated the project - wearing the shirt and dancing while it dissolved on his body in the fountain at Washington Square park. (there’s a video on you tube) It was an experiment in collaboration - How far could we push this fabrication? Does the Patriarchy dissolve with the fabric? Does masculinity? Does Gender?
I’ve been working with found materials for many years. Much of my art practice is based in reuse. 2020 has reinforced my commitment to repurposing. I am a nose to tail artist- trying to use every bit of the scrap I create. I am endless interested in how we, as a society, assign value. What is precious and what is disposable. I think about the work as future artifacts- considering- if this work is dug up by an anthropologist in the future what would it say about the times we live in and how can I use the skills I’ve acquire and the materials all around me to tell a story.
Urmila: As you mentioned, your work on the shirts was part of “deconstruction” series. Does destruction relate to this? If so, how do you decide the level/intensity of destruction? Is it random or highly controlled? What are the accompanying changes such as shrinkage, hardening, drying etc.? What were the significant moments you discovered when you experimented with media and materials?
Winnie: My shirt series is a project to Dismantle the Patriarchy - one shirt at a time. It began at a convergence of three strands of thought.
My daughter was in her last semester of college- about to enter the real world. I wanted to protect her from the harsh realities of the world knowing all the while that I couldn’t protect her. I was sad that we (feminists) hadn’t met our goals of gender equality. Women are still fighting the same fights and facing the same challenges. I desperately wanted to offer her a better world - one without the chokehold of the capitalist patriarchy. I wanted to make her armor.
Meanwhile, I was experiencing menopause and for no apparent reason people randomly started calling me sir. The aforementioned menopause added heat to my response. I was angry but also wondered why I cared about the label. Society was ‘un woman ing’ me. So I started to wonder if I was no longer woman was I man? And if I was man did I now have access to all the privileges and power of an upper-middle-class white man?
At the same time there seemed to be a drastic increase in false news and invented narratives in our country. So I thought I’d create my own truth and perhaps will it or manifest it into reality with a not at all scientific examination of the power in menswear.
I began to deconstruct the shirts to find and co-opt their power. Turning them into new forms including but not limited to armor. I cut them apart - always keeping the seams because I think the power is in the seams as they hold all of the intention and labor of the making. Some are embroidered some are reconstructed with woven wire. I am using all of the techniques in my tool belt to change them. My goal is an ‘army’ of 100 shirts. I’m also creating a Lending Library of Power for the Occasionally Overlooked and Otherwise Invisible- 100 collars and 200 cuffs removed from shirts and embellished- to be worn as accessory for anyone feeling disempowered and needing a little borrowed power. The deconstruction led to a pile of ‘shirt meat’ that I have turned into abstract collage - (Objectification of the Patriarchy), a quilt (Domestication of the Patriarchy) and a scrap fabric sausage sculpture (By product/ Patriarchal Sausage/Final Consumption). I don’t know the afterlife of this work- perhaps I’ll bury it and it can exist like the terra cotta warriors.
My friend and collaborator, Noah Pica, describes my work as iterative interference. He’s not wrong. I like to take an idea and consider every possible way I can express that idea. So when deconstructing, I deconstruct in many ways. My work ranges from random to highly controlled. (Although, a high level of control hardly ever works out for me.) I always try to allow the materials to respond to my interference and then I try to respond to how the materials behave. I like the discovery and surprise. Everything is an experiment. My mentor, Natalia Nakazawa (@nakazawastudio) told me that if I‘m not failing 50% of the time- I’m not pushing far enough. I always allow for magic and learning. I always start with “what if...”
Deconstruction is a beginning. It’s analytical - a careful consideration of how something is made, how it might be unmade and how it might be transformed into something new, different, better.
Damage is a turning point - inviting response. When something is damaged I have a choice. I can try and repair the damage- heal, fix, restore OR I can embrace the damage, lean in and take the opportunity to reimagine - interfere, evolve, change.
It’s a matter of perspective. Damage, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder- but then again so is possibility.
Corrections - a plastic surgery sampler (below), is about beauty and imperfection. I’ve taken a image of a woman from the late 1800s and stitched on plastic surgery suggestions. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this woman’s face. It is not damaged; it is aged. Repair is unnecessary. As a woman of an certain age, I’m inundated with messages that my face and body need to be fixed. Modern society has decided that I am not enough- that I require improvement. No one told this woman to paint herself or surgically alter herself. These are messages unique to our time. I think this face is beautiful. I am working on seeing this beauty in my face.
This second piece (below) is a work in progress - an old stained tablecloth that was bleached in an attempt to fix it. Bleach weakened the fabric- so now its stained and torn. I added stitching to emphasize the stains instead of trying to hide them. This piece is a round robin collaboration with other textile/mending artists each adding stitches to emphasize the imperfection.
Destruction is an ending. It’s angry and uncontrolled, sudden. Leaving nothing. An extinction. Violent. Fatal. Final. I wouldn’t characterize my work as destruction.
What I’m trying to do is offer up as many possible alternatives as I can imagine. What I want to do is show that there are infinite possibilities.
Urmila: As people who live in NYC, we have been immersed in the mood of the city and how it has changed so dramatically. Do you think responses to the events of the past months (and years) have found their way into these works and, if so, how?
Winnie: I’m a Native Californian. I moved to NYC with my husband in Sept 2018, when our youngest left for college, to be a part of a 9-month art residency program with the Textile Arts Center (@textileartscenter) in Brooklyn. At TAC I was introduced to other art activists and art activism as a discipline. I started to see myself as a revolutionary. I embraced the idea that “The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.” (Toni Cade Bambara) Becoming part of the city has intensified my work. The community is so diverse and passionate and honest and vital. I feel it every time I walk out of my apartment. I feel like I can be my full self in NY. NYC enabled my activism by allowing me access to the energy and the conversation, offering more varied population and more varied voices.
Urmila: I read that you did your undergraduate studies in Sociology with a focus on Marxist theory. Do you think that your works with ‘deconstruction’ and ‘dissolution’ address issues of labor, hegemony and social power?
Winnie: In university, I studied Sociology with a focus on Marxist theory and a keen interest in propaganda. These (many) years later this course of study shows up in my work. I’m also interested in messaging, repetition and mantra. Although repetition and mantra are different I think that if you add intention to repetition it can become spiritually transformative mantra. For me mantra leads to visualization which leads to manifestation. If I deconstruct 100 shirts maybe I can dismantle the patriarchy. I’m sure gonna try.
My work in deconstruction and dissolution is intended to address issues of labor, hegemony and social power as well as issues of gender, identity and capitalism. Some of the work is communal including others in the creation and or activation. It is all inherently performative. I think all the best artwork is collaborative and participatory.
