Textile Artist Receives Accelerator Grant from the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo
Ruxandra Nagy is one of the recipients of the Accelerator Grant Cycle 2, 2023 awarded by the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo.
About the grant: This project is partially funded by an Arts Commission Accelerator Grant made possible through support from ProMedica, the Ohio Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and other generous supporters.
The Arts Commission values the many artists across disciplines who are part of Toledo's vibrant creative community. The Accelerator Grant is a competitive program offering financial support with a quick turnaround for local artists to advance their creative projects and their careers. Eligible categories of support for this program include equipment, supplies, professional development, and project support. A committee comprised of members of the visual, performing and literary arts communities meets each grant cycle to review applications and make recommendations for funding to the Arts Commission staff and board.
Ruxandra Nagy is a self-taught emerging artist who found her passion for traditional arts and crafts while serving as an historical interpreter at the Seven Eagles Center in Grand Rapids, Ohio.
At the intersection of history and art, Ruxandra’s focus became the revival of the endangered craft of twining bags, making the rich culture and knowledge of the Indigenous peoples accessible and appreciated across communities.
The focus of her project is recreating historic twined bags made by pre-contact Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes thousands of years ago, as well as later, post-contact, tapestry-style storage bags. Twining is the oldest form of weaving without the use of a loom; it consists of a set of warps and wefts, where two adjacent elements of one set enclose elements of the other set, locking them in place; patterns, depending on style, are created by either alternatively crossing the warps (as seen in panel bags) or revealed in the change of weft colors, as seen in the post-contact tapestry bags. Patterns were recovered from textile imprints on pottery shards or fabric remnants found in caves where the salt acted as a preservative. Historical bags were made of natural bast fibers dyed to achieve contrast in patterns: hemp, dogbane, nettle, basswood bark. Post-contact bags, distinctive for the tapestry style of twining, used wool weft in a multitude of colors, reflective of the changed in culture and economy.
The Accelerator Grant facilitates Ruxandra the purchase of authentic materials to create accurate educational replicas of the historic and post-historic bags, using handspun nettle, hemp, wool, bison down as well as materials needed to make several more looms. The grant will also enable Ruxandra to continue her learning journey and take classes on Chilkat blanket weaving and Maori Taaniko weaving, two forms of twining with close resemblances to the Great Lakes twining. Access to quality materials and professional mentorship will allow Ruxandra to expand her body of work with different techniques reflecting the textile arts of the Great Lakes indigenous peoples from different historical periods.
The Arts Commission is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded in 1959 to foster Toledo’s heritage in the arts. The organization is the longest-standing arts commission in the state of Ohio, serving youth, artists, arts organizations, and the general public. Since 1977, The Arts Commission has managed the City of Toledo’s One Percent for Art program, the first in the state of Ohio and among the first in the nation, and maintains Toledo’s impressive collection of public art.
Press Release Contact Name: Ruxandra Nagy
Press Release Contact Email:[email protected]