The multimedia works of Maggie Thompson (Ojibwe) expand various textile traditions’ inherited ways of being and becoming. Thompson skillfully and intuitively works with both natural and synthetic materials to address personal and universal experiences of loss, grief, and love.
Selected for the 2023 Renwick Invitational at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Thompson has recently had solo exhibitions that include Just Friends at Bockley Gallery (2022) and Dakobijige / She Ties Things Together at the Watermark Center in Bemidji, Minnesota (2021). She has been awarded grants from the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, and her work is collected by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Minnesota Museum of American Art, and the Minnesota Historical Society, among other public institutions.
Thompson holds a BFA in Textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design (2013) and is based in Minneapolis, MN.
FELLOWSHIP STATEMENT
I want to begin researching my Mom's side of the family more in depth in order to create new photographic, textile-based work using weaving and industrial knitting techniques. As I have created so much work based on the loss of my Dad, I want to create new work based on the joy of my Mother. Having the ability to reflect on the relationship of mother and daughter will also be important on a personal level, as she is growing older.
I have begun this body of work through a single commissioned piece for the Hood Museum of Art. The work is a self portrait photograph that is cut down in to strips that are being woven through with blue 1/8" pieces of ribbon. The overall pattern created with the ribbon is based on my mom’s blue and white dishes with an Ojibwe floral flare.
I want to continue exploring this new technique of weaving photography and ribbon, along with refining my programming skills on the industrial Stoll knitting machine to continue to challenge preconceived ideas of what Native art should and can be.
