Biography

Pat Hickman, Professor Emeritus of the Art Department, University of Hawaii, has a studio at the Garnerville Arts and Industrial Center, NY and lives in the Lower Hudson Valley. Hickman twice received NEA Individual Artist’s Grants. In 2005, she was elected a Fellow of the American Craft Council. She was President (2008-2010) of the Textile Society of America. Hickman curated traveling exhibits: Innerskins/Outerskins: Gut and Fishskin and Baskets: Redefining Volume and Meaning. Her work is in several major collections, including the Oakland Museum, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Hawaii State Art Museum, and the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. In Hawaii, Hickman’s commission, Nets of Makali’i–Nets of the Pleiades, stands as monumental entrance gates for the Maui Arts and Cultural Center.

Artist Statement

I come out of a textile tradition and respond to the expressiveness of cloth, of fibrous materials, of flexible linear materials, of making something out of seemingly nothing, of forgiving materials. I use natural materials—reeds and branches, found materials, rusted materials, paper—that which speaks of time and memory, of materials which feel close to life. I create structure out of stiff materials which I can manipulate, sometimes covering structures with skin membrane. I find materials which express what I’m trying to say in my artwork. They are familiar and accessible. At this point in time when divisions between media are breaking down, painters and sculptors are choosing to use fiber, combining it with their materials. They do not come out of a textile background, knowing the traditional techniques used historically in world textiles, but, I believe, they are responding to the expressive quality of those materials.