Ruta Saliklis
Mildred T. Johnstone (1900-1988) embroidered a series of wall hangings
on the theme of Bethlehem Steel in the 1940s and 1950s. She chose this subject because her husband
was an executive there and both of their lives revolved around Bethlehem
Steel. Far from being realistic,
literal renderings, these are vividly colored, modern, abstract and highly
textural interpretations that use steel making as a metaphor for modern life.
Her interests in Zen Buddhism, theater, and dance are the lenses through which
she viewed Bethlehem Steel, and these interests are synthesized in her
exceptional embroideries.
The process of making the embroideries involved
collaborations with several artists.
For the first embroideries in the series, she collaborated with Chilean
artist Pablo A. Burchard (1919-1991), who drew designs on Johnstone’s canvases
from the photographs, collages and verbal instructions provided by
Johnstone. The later embroideries were
the result of a collaboration with Joseph Cantieni (1911-1995), artist in
residence at The Bethlehem Steel Corporation.
Johnstone’s artistic embroideries were exhibited
widely in the United States, Canada and France during her lifetime. In 1953, her Alice in a Wonderland of Steel was awarded first prize at the
Brooklyn Museum’s “Designer-Craftsmen USA” exhibition. A retrospective exhibition of Johnstone’s
work will be shown at the Allentown Art Museum from January 5 through March 16,
2003. This twenty-minute presentation
will place her embroideries within a continuum of needle art while
simultaneously emphasizing their uniqueness as pioneering achievements of the
1950s.
Ruta
Saliklis received her Ph.D. in Textiles and Design from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison in 1995. She is The
Kate Fowler Merle-Smith Curator of Textiles at the Allentown Art Museum,
Allentown, PA. She is also a part-time
visiting professor at Lafayette College in Easton, PA. Numerous publications include a chapter on
Lithuanian folk dress in Folk Dress in
Europe and Anatolia: Beliefs about Protection and Fertility edited by Linda
Welters. This paper is the outcome of
research for an exhibition and catalogue on Mildred Johnstone’s embroideries
scheduled for January 2003. Funding
for this project is from the Lenore Tawney Foundation.