Hohimer
A Letter From Texas
Dallas Art Fair
Dallas, Texas
April 2025
written by Elizabeth Hohimer
These works have been made in the essence of as well as given titles from the Townsend Miller poem, A Letter From Texas. This poem was published by Neman Marcus Dallas location in 1939. The poem was published as a celebration of the state's unique characteristics as the work I am showing now also highlights. The hope behind Neman's publication of the beautifully printed poem book was that visitors to Texas might find something significant and characteristic to send to their friends elsewhere. The dreamt atmospheric text that Townsend writes to his friend,’John’, to whom the poem is directed toward sells and celebrates aspects of texas ranging from the joyous sublime to subtlety erie yet romantic qualities that are seeped into the geography, flora and dark skies of this state. For me this poem reads as a dream-like encounter of a place one has never been, and I hope that to be what viewing my woven paintings is kindred to.
This body of work has served as a true route back to myself. Finding roads and views I had lost in my memory somewhere since coming of age and turning 33. This body was produced between Marfa Texas and Austin Texas with time spent in the grand expanses between those two regions. These woven paintings were made on my 16 hardness European floor loom. They were all produced using a double cloth technique in which I weave two layers of cloth at once, while only one is visible, the other half is visible once it is unfolded, off the loom. A trace of this weave structure lingers in the tension of the fold line in the center of the weavings. While the warp threads are composed of Texas cotton, grown in the panhandle, the colors for these works vary from my past pieces, as these works reference the lateral aspect of the visual grid. The big sky of Texas. The ground(ed) grid is so seemingly stable, while the sky moves rapidly, showing more gesture. I found hope in looking up, literally.
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with love from Texas
