That is by design: Her process is methodical, every step deliberate.
I like how slow it all is, she says.
Theres not much thats slow.
Ruth Laskey.Twill Series (Loops 3), 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Altman Siegel, San Francisco.
Ruth Laskey.Twill Series (Circles 4), 2022.
Courtesy of the artist and Altman Siegel, San Francisco.
Laskey has been working this way for 20 years.
Ruth Laskey.Twill Series (Circles 4), 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Altman Siegel, San Francisco.
Loops, from 2023, is the latest member of the Twill family.
The exhibition intersperses the eightLoopsand sevenCircles, placing them in conversation.
I like the dialogue thats happening, Laskey says.
Ruth Laskey.Twill Series (Loops 5), 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Altman Siegel, San Francisco.
Theres a really nice rhythm between the two bodies of work.
Ruth Laskey.Twill Series (Loops 5), 2023.
Courtesy of the artist and Altman Siegel, San Francisco.
Ruth Laskey.Twill Series (Loops 7), 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Altman Siegel, San Francisco.
These textiles have both a quiet playfulness and deep sincerity.
They squiggle and twirl in light, coordinating colors.
(The hues are meant to be ambiguouspurpley-gray, tealish-green.)
Ruth Laskey.Twill Series (Loops 6), 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Altman Siegel, San Francisco.
TheCirclesare more saturated, glowing suns dancing around one another.
From a distance their subtlety may trick you into thinking the work itself is simple.
Every thread, every stitch, is laid by hand, precisely as intended.
She thinks a lot about form, starting well before thread is even involved.
She works on a grid, sketching out her designs using no small amount of calculation.
Math is not my thing, she says with a little laugh.
But as a process-oriented person, she figured it out, and dove into geometry.
Mimicking a circle or a curved line when you must stick to a grid was itself quite the operation.
That herLoopsespecially have such fluidity and movement when they start from graph paper is remarkable.
Ruth Laskey.Twill Series (Loops 7), 2023.
Courtesy of the artist and Altman Siegel, San Francisco.
But her pieces also carry dimensionality.
I like them being objects.
In my mind theyre a little bit sculptural, she says.
Laskey finds a way to do something so thoroughly, but still get at this concept of simplicity.
Its no wonder that when her labor-intensive process is over, her feelings are mixed.
Ruth Laskey.Twill Series (Loops 6), 2023.
Courtesy of the artist and Altman Siegel, San Francisco.
Its an exciting moment to pull them off the loom and see that whatever I was doing was working.
The process is part of my livelihood.
Its what sustains me as a person.
