Text by Finnian Boyle and Viivi Koistinen | Photography by Winston Hart and Daniel Ribar
We spoke to Taylor Childs on the eve of ArtClvb’s ‘Art Fair’, a weekend-long event showcasing the work of emerging and mid-career artists. Taylor’s piece, titled Filling in the Gap (2024), is a room-like installation, furniture draped in colorful fabrics: her great-grandmother's lace curtain, her great aunt’s prayer journals, a porch light and a sunbeam mirror. Taylor says she regards the work as an act of reverence towards the family members ‘filling in the gap’, working to balance black family structures affected by colonization. A few weeks after we spoke with Taylor, we arranged a photoshoot at the Apex Bar, which is the subject of her 2024 exhibition at the Love Building. The bar, a locus of family history, sits on the corner of Oakland and Smith in Detroit's North End neighborhood, the site of the formerly burgeoning black community Paradise Valley. Taylor brought some quilts of hers to the photoshoot - one of them depicted the exterior of the now-abandoned dive.
FB&VK: How is your Thursday going?
TC: We have our fashion show tomorrow, so I’m in fashion show mode.
FB&VK: How do you approach fashion shows, as opposed to showing your other work ?
TC: I think of it as being part of my broader body of work. I think of fashion through a fiber lens. I think about the silhouette. It’s a symbolic practice: “What stories can I tell on the garment?” I think fashion can be political. I use it as a free-er space to say whatever I want to say, whereas I feel my quilts are more centered.
FB&VK: And you might have more movement to play around with.
TC: Yeah. With my quilts, people always pull in fashion as well. So, it’s been interesting to explore my own approach to fashion. I love Yinka Shonibare and their work, and how three-dimensional it is. So, I’m also thinking about what I can do in conjunction, so that art and fashion don’t have to live separately.
"Most of my quilts are taken from my family’s archives. So, I also think of myself as a researcher."
FB&VK: You are participating in Art Fair.
TC: I have an installation called Filling in the Gap there.
FB&VK: How has that process been?
TC: Even installing my work at Art Fair, I was getting excited. I took the longest time, because I wanted to see everyone else’s work and to see how it was curated. It was really cool to see how everyone’s work flowed together, and it really felt like a community of artists. People were talking during install, explaining the processes. I was excited to see how it all fit together within one building.
FB&VK: Can you think of some early aesthetic experiences that have affected you, both as a person and as an artist?
TC: I grew up with my grandmother, so I think I’m pulling from my own practice of her aesthetics. She was very maximalist. She grew up at the tail end of the Great Depression, so she saved everything. A lot of my storytelling comes from growing up in a home curated by her.
I use symbolism in my work. The sun theme is something my family is surrounded by, you can’t get rid of it. Throughout the photos I’ve looked through, sun themed mirrors are a key object. I use them as symbols to tie into that period of time, and to class as well.
FB&VK: How do you draw on time in your pieces?
TC: Most of my quilts are taken from my family’s archives. So, I also think of myself as a researcher. I’m constantly digging through family photos or looking through handwritten notes. I’m pulling from these archives and retelling stories through my lens. Oftentimes, I’m not in the photo, it’s stories I’ve heard, that map of translation.
FB&VK: Do you have conversations with your family members to gain further perspective, or do you lean on your own perception of the photos?
TC: Whenever we gather to look over photos, it’s like medicine for us - even if they pertain to more traumatic times. I’ve been recording my grandmother talking about her experiences, because she has Alzheimer’s. The stories are going away, and she’s the record keeper.
The albums I have now are hers, and they’re her sister’s. Both of them have Alzheimers. So, I’m really trying to keep and to preserve these stories. I’m thinking about lost archives, and about stories that remain untold once people start to die off.
A large part of my practice concerns my family’s bar in the North End called the Apex bar. No one is alive to tell those stories, really at all, besides my grandmother and a cousin of hers. So, I think I’m taking it on as a place that keeps and tells stories that would have been otherwise lost. It’s bittersweet. Up until now, the work hasn’t been so hard to do. It was more celebratory. Now, it’s like, oh. There’s sensitivity within it.
FB&VK: How would you describe Detroit as an artistic environment?
TC: I grew up in Detroit. There was a high school inside the CCS building for artists that weren’t societally represented. Most of my teachers were artists. So, I grew up with this lens of loving art, and seeing the possibility in it, seeing what art can do in terms of community. Recently, I’ve been thinking about my practice outside of just the frame of the quilt. I started with a square quilt. Now, with the installations and the community events, I’m thinking of how I can reach other people and create community within my art.
FB&VK: In an interview with Stateside Podcast, you mentioned that a lot of people think of you as a symbolic artist, but you also see yourself creating another language in your work through texture and layering.
TC: Within my work, I think there are two languages. A lot of times when people see portraiture, they think, okay, that’s just straight to the point. But as a fiber artist, I see and use material as a way to tell stories. I place family household items in conversation with the existing work. I have things from our homes, old wallpaper and such, that I’m starting to integrate into my work. In Filling in the Gap, it’s an old curtain from my grandmother. Then: I’m burning pieces, I’m layering things, I’m doing Tripunto - a method where you’re stuffing and stitching on top. I really try to apply a vulnerability and an emotionality through material. I’m also very, very, very selective on what materials I use and how they add to the dialogue.
FB&VK: What constitutes a language for you?
TC: I think material has so much language embedded in it to begin with. I think about how I can communicate ideas without using symbolism at times. I’ve popped between both of those realms, I integrate both of them at times.
FB&VK: How do you imbue narrative complexity within your developed language?
TC: That goes with the conversation that’s inherent in my pieces. Sometimes I feel insecure in telling the stories of people who aren’t here anymore. It’s very personal. But within a lineage, you’re all of these people. You represent all these people. So, I think that is what’s happening with me pulling from the archive. With Filling in the Gap, it’s from the perspective of my great-grandmother. So that’s my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mom, all embedded into that one piece. I think of it as all of their voices from my perspective.
FB&VK: Are there any artists that you try to learn from within the field of textiles? Anyone that speaks to you directly?
TC: Well, I just graduated from Cranbrook. We had the Sonya Clark show, and did a deep dive into her process. I’m still in awe of how deep her research goes, and how she will take an idea and push it to the furthest level. I think I’m thinking about that more: “How can I push symbolism to the furthest it can go?”. I’ve been exploring how I can extend my ideas into the realm of deep research, how I might be able to exhaust them. Every part of her show was very, very, very, very intentional, which I also try to do.
"But as a fiber artist, I see and use material as a way to tell stories. I place family household items in conversation with the existing work."
FB&VK: You use photographs as references. You’ve also said that there are stories that exist in the photographs that you see that are neglected in that form. Can you elaborate on your
critique of photography?
TC: In the photos, I’m taking note of what’s going on during that time, and trying to connect the dots. I am looking at the furniture, I’m looking at how things are arranged. A lot of my symbols represent subtle elements of class. I think I use symbolism as a way of saying what I want to say without harming people. There is a lot of subversion that happens in my work, and that stems from the photo. I dissect the photo and pull out the underlying things.
FB&VK: Referencing your conversation with the Stateside Podcast again; you said: “Everyone has a relationship with textile, whether they realize it or not”. How do you think touch is positioned in art and art critique? Is it neglected?
TC: I love touch. I love texture within my work. And I do think that touch has been neglected. But, whenever you critique a piece, your senses are always naturally embedded, which will make you go to a certain place.
The burning of fibers, or the burning of peoples’ faces, people have a visceral reaction to that - whether it’s pain or loss, or loss of memory. I’ve had to evoke that within texture and touch. Things collapsing on themselves. I think that helps me with the storytelling aspect of the work.
I really want people to feel. I want people to be able to place themselves within the work and feel what I’m trying to express. Oftentimes art is a release for me. It’s always been a safe space and somewhere I’ve been able to say whatever I need to say without feeling confined.
FB&VK: You also teach art.
TC: I used to teach high school art. Right now, I’m teaching a kids’ sustainability class. It’s been really rewarding. Comparing it to my high school class, I don’t really see a difference; they all have needs of being cared for and wanting to express themselves.
I think of my teaching method as, I want art to be a place where people can vent. Kids will often come in with an attitude, things going on at home - I can always tell. I try to present art as a way to allow them to express themselves. Oftentimes they do leave the classroom with a release, lighter. I love teaching art.
I teach kids sustainability so that they understand it’s not a luxury. That it is obtainable. As a kid, I didn’t have access to a sewing machine. It really wasn’t until graduating that I could do this type of work. But I want kids to learn how to weave, how to make their own looms using cardboard, and to have more access to different types of art, as opposed to only drawing - which, of course, is also valuable in itself. But, kids often think that if they don’t know how to draw, then they don’t know how to ‘do art’, which is not true. Now there are kids in my class that work with fiber, and they’re like “I’m an artist”.
FB&VK: With ArtClvb, we’ve been asking people what they collect and how. So, we extend that question to you.
TC: I have been collecting a lot of wallpaper from my grandmother. We’ve been cleaning out her house. Everybody wants specific things. I’ve also been pulling out the letters. I feel like they show where her mind was. Trying to tell these stories, it reconfirms what I know about her.
I’ve also begun to incorporate her journals within my art so she’s able to tell her own story as opposed to me doing it on her behalf.
"I really want people to feel. I want people to be able to place themselves within the work and feel what I’m trying to express."
FB&VK: Favorite Detroit spot to dance with friends?
TC: I love to listen to sets at Paramita, UFO bar, Northern Lights, Easy Peasy or Spotlite.
FB&VK: Favorite spot to grab something to eat?
TC: My favorite order is from Ima (Corktown) I always get the spicy tori ramen with pork belly. I normally do not eat pork, but the pork is very tender. So good.
FB&VK: What are you listening to now?
TC: I have been listening to Doechii a lot lately. They remind me of riding in my dad’s car. I love how the lyrics is their artistry.
Thank you to Taylor Childs for sharing her experience and insight with us. To explore her practice, visit her website
To purchase or view more of Taylor Childs's work, download the ArtClvb app on mobile.