Installation

size variable, found quilt, cotton and linen, found and hand-stitched embroidery, 2017

“There are many visual metaphors, symbols, and references to myths in Installation. You will find images of reconnaissance satellites, snare traps, peacocks, and eyes, including the many eyes of the Greek giant, Argus Panoptes, to reference surveillance and loss of privacy. I use snakes to symbolize gossip.” —Maggy Rozycki Hiltner

“Here is a poem that I like to include with the exhibit. It is quite old, one of those things published in the newspaper by Dear Abby, but quite relevant in our social media age:

My Name is Gossip, author unknown

My name is Gossip
I have no respect for Justice.
I maim without feeling
I break hearts and ruin lives.

I am cunning and malicious
And gather strength with my age
The more I am quoted, the more I am believed.

My victims are helpless.
They cannot protect themselves against me because I have no name and no face.

To track me down is impossible.
The harder you try, the more elusive I become. I am nobody’s friend.

Once I tarnish a reputation, things are never the same.
I topple governments, and wreck marriages.
I ruin careers and cause sleepless nights, heartaches, and indigestion.
I make innocent people cry on their pillows.

My sound hisses, they call me Gossip.
I make headlines and headaches.

Before you repeat a story,
Maybe you should ask yourself:

Is this true? Is this harmless? Is it necessary?
or is it just “nobody’s friend”, gossip.

If it’s not yours to tell, please don’t.

(Published in the newspaper by Dear Abby)” —Maggy Rozycki Hiltner

Superfun(d)

Superfun(d) was created after giving lectures on another large-scale stitched installation about pollution called Vantage Point. In the artist talk, she discussed Superfund sites, but as she is a bit of a fast speaker and often uses humor in her work, the audience heard ‘superfun.’ Inspired by this, Hiltner began research and design for Superfun(d). The intention was to create a sideshow exhibit that looked thrilling and fun from a distance but held stories of our country’s most outrageous pollution in the details.

Hiltner studied the designs of historical sideshow and circus posters and read about the over 1700 historical and current Superfund sites in the United States on the EPA website and in correlating newspaper and journal articles (and kept a bibliography of this research). She chose the oddest and most terrible to feature in this piece.

Superfun(d)’s sideshow posters were created in cut and printed paper before being sent off to be printed on cloth. This process was new to the artist, but she learned and employed it to be able to feature the informative text clearly. The panels were then machine and hand quilted and embroidered. The red and white tent was made from a found quilt, altered and repaired for the piece. The skeletons are characters often used in the artist’s work as guides, these were made from scrap linen and hand stitched.

In Superfun(d), the dark audacity and extensiveness of corporate pollution is conveyed not as a polemic, but playfully in quilt form. A bit of comedy is a great way to give a bitter pill.

Biography

Maggy Rozycki Hiltner is a full-time studio artist and activist who moved to Red Lodge, Montana with her family in 2005 to establish the Red Lodge Clay Center. She grew up in Pennsylvania and comes from a family of makers: her mother and grandmothers needlepointed pillows and made quilts and stitched or knitted their clothes and toys; her father built odd things and cooked outrageous meals and painted murals in their home.

She earned a BFA in Sculpture with a concentration in Fibers from Syracuse University and was a Studio Assistant at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. For over 20 years now, she has been collaging found embroidery with her hand-stitched imagery, giving these abandoned textiles new meaning and relevance. Her work has been published and exhibited in museums and galleries nationally and internationally. She was a 2015 recipient of the Montana Arts Council Artist’s Innovation Award.

Artist Statement

Rozycki Hiltner searches antique shops, thrift stores and yard sales for embroidered linens, quilts, and small objects, collecting the brightly colored flowers, foliage, and animals that appear in her work. What she cannot find she hand-stitches and builds and mixes in with the collected embroidery. She uses the familiarity of the stitch along with seemingly lighthearted and cheerful designs to convey more serious subject matter. She often uses humor to tell her stories, and very rarely is everything quite what it seems.