Oh my word … dreamy, bead-covered, aquatic, Greek goddesses in blue! This is just a tiny bit the textile sculpture work of American artist Tasha Lewis. I’ve written about her before, but she currently has a show happening in Nashville TN, so I wanted to make sure you knew about it. Yes, some of her most recent work is currently being shown at the Centennial Park Conservancy {Parthenon Gallery} in an exhibition titled Flood Lines. Here are a few words, and a quote from Tasha, from the gallery’s site about this show:

A student of art and literature, sculptor Tasha Lewis borrows from ancient artifacts to evoke contemporary narratives about women. In ‘Flood Lines’ she updates classical forms such as vessels and figures featuring hand embroidered beads, wire, and hand dyed fabric. Over 35 sculptures of exquisite craftsmanship are carefully arranged within the gallery to create an immersive space that is both formal and organic. Here life-sized human heads, legs, and torsos wend their way among Alabastron and Lekythos vessels to create what Lewis calls a “minimalist bath house.” … 

Flood Lines coincides with the 100th anniversary of the 19th US Constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote. As Tennessee suffragists were instrumental to the ratification of this law, Lewis sees Flood Lines as an homage to these women.

“My figures embody an independence not unlike the Tennessee suffragists of 100 years ago who fought for the voting rights of American women. Their courage helped to make democracy available to all citizens. My work employs sewing, embroidery, and beadwork, crafts that were among the housework that anti-suffragists worried women would abandon if they got the vote. As ancient Greece is the birthplace of democracy, the Greek forms in my pieces evoke a connection between the ancient and modern, hopefully celebrating and reinventing the classical.”

You can find Tasha’s show in the East Gallery of the Parthenon from now until Sunday, May 10, 2020. I plan on popping in when I’m in Nashville this March… can’t wait!