Taking Shape - Maggy Rozycki Hiltner

Maggy Rozycki Hiltner
Wichita, Kansas

The mediums of fabric and sewing are familiar, allowing a comfortable stage to be set for sweet and strange narratives and visual metaphors. I explore innocence and longing, fearlessness and danger, blunt honesty and derisive commentary and other situations that apply both to children and adults. Images of children are used as a bridge to the viewer, as we all have the experience of childhood in common, with its daily doses of beauty, anxiety, joy and pain. Common childhood events span socioeconomic class, race and gender differences. With these images I am trying to evoke a recognition of oneself in others and the amazing oddness and commonalities of our individual and connected lives. I like the narratives to be ambiguous and interpretable.

The work is hand-stitched, and being part of the long loaded history of women's work often leads me to commentary on domestic life and nostalgia. The imagery is from 40's and 50's storybooks and the timeless patterns of Aunt Martha's brand of tea towel transfers. I am interested the perceived innocence of this era, the childhood time of my parents. I think the work is a reaction to their stories of an idealized time, mixed with the realities of growing up.







			The Space Between hand-stitched cotton
		Maggy Rozycki Hiltner Wichita, Kansas The mediums of fabric and sewing are familiar, allowing a comfortable stage to be set for sweet and strange narratives and visual metaphors. I explore innocence and longing, fearlessness and danger, blunt honesty and derisive commentary and other situations that apply both to children and adults. Images of children are used as a bridge to the viewer, as we all have the experience of childhood in common, with its daily doses of beauty, anxiety, joy and pain. Common childhood events span socioeconomic class, race and gender differences. With these images I am trying to evoke a recognition of oneself in others and the amazing oddness and commonalities of our individual and connected lives. I like the narratives to be ambiguous and interpretable. The work is hand-stitched, and being part of the long loaded history of women's work often leads me to commentary on domestic life and nostalgia. The imagery is from 40's and 50's storybooks and the timeless patterns of Aunt Martha's brand of tea towel transfers. I am interested the perceived innocence of this era, the childhood time of my parents. I think the work is a reaction to their stories of an idealized time, mixed with the realities of growing up.