Linda Colsh

Mole & Henge 

Four times in the two years we lived in Seoul, I witnessed a mysterious and mystical henge phenomenon. Twice each year, from my front stoop, I would sit and see a shaft of bright light in the sky near the horizon. The light was always in the same spot in the sky. The sight gave me understanding and a connection with ancient henge-builders. Sharing the experience with a Korean friend after being mesmerized several times by the light, he explained that I was seeing the rising sun glowing through the glass exterior elevator on the DLI-63 building, miles away on Yeouido Island. At 63 stories, DLI-63 was the tallest building in Korea at that time. Also at that time, the air in Seoul was very polluted and the smog obscured the building, but the refracted sunlight was powerful enough for me to see even when I couldn’t see the building.

The henge phenomenon was above ground, in the sky.
Mole & Henge also references an underground aspect of Seoul. I was struck by how much of Seoul is underground–huge shopping arcades, restaurants, the entire black market, and of course miles of corridors and the subway system.  A lot of the Korean attitude toward almost everything is very strongly colored by fear of invasion.  I think this underground city is probably a response to that–a not-so-secret second city like a gigantic bomb shelter.  Problem was, other than the subway maps, there really didn’t exist any maps to help you get around down there, so it was like wandering in a huge maze. With help from Korean friends, I eventually could find what I needed–I bought a lot of my art supplies underground and even took paper classes below the city.  I knew where the “entry holes” were; and, once underground, I negotiated through the tunnels and passageways like a mole, blind without maps, feeling my way and relying on memory of previous underground journeys.  When done, I’d pop back up into the daylight.

Grounds

After 24 years being a member the American diaspora, I returned to America and began a series of six kinetic ceiling-hung installations: each is a swarm of 24 suspended, two-sided coffee-filter paper moths or fans that slowly turn in air currents. I chose used coffee filters because for the universality of coffee as a drink. The concept of filtering and moving through echoes the transitory mobility of migration.

A special concern is displacement: people dispersed and reacting to change. They leave a homeland or the ground where they were last rooted. New territory is uncharted to be discovered. Like stones carried by streams, they settle in new grounds. They join other diasporans in a hybrid place called third culture where they mix the old with the new to create a third, very unique place, which is where many lay down their roots and others move on or move back home.

Biography

The art of Linda Colsh explores humanist themes in three areas of interest: aging, the environment, and migration. With an affinity for the unnoticed, the displaced and the invisible, she chooses her subject matter from urban streets or rural woods, farms and creeks. Growing up on a small island in the Chesapeake Bay gave her a keen appreciation of nature. Her interest in people and cultures derives from a quarter century of experience as an American expat traveling the cities of Europe and Asia. In 2014, the family returned to Maryland, settling on a quiet hilltop in the Middletown Valley.

Each work begins with plain cloth or paper that she alters with paint, stain, dye, discharge and ink. Her instinct is to work in a minimal neutral palette within a wide value range. Her process is weighted to designing content from her photographs and drawings, before layering and stitching together as fiber art for the wall or pedestal- or ceiling-mounted pieces.

A lifelong artist with degrees in the history of art, Linda Colsh exhibits internationally. Highlights include selection for Latvia’s International Textile & Fibre Art Triennial, the Fuller Craft Biennial and several Fiber Art Now Excellence in Fibers exhibitions. Her career includes solo exhibitions in Germany, Belgium, Hungary, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Korea; and the United States. She has juried, judged and curated major international exhibitions, including Quilt Nihon, Visions, Quilt National and the National Quilt Museum’s 20th Anniversary. Her work is published worldwide and is held in public, private and corporate collections, including the Collection of John M. Walsh III, Lore Degenstein Gallery Permanent Collection, International Quilt Museum and Germany’s Nordwolle Textile Museum. Among her awards are the European Quilt Triennial first prize, Maryland Federation of Art’s Art on Paper Juror’s Choice Award and Nihon Vogue’s Quilts Japan Prize.