Dallas artist creates rainbows with 60 miles of thread

115303'Obsessive' artist sculpts out of 40 miles of sewing threadGabriel Dawe sculpts 40 miles of sewing thread for his installation piece at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Arts State of the Art exhibit.For more Art Beat: newshour.pbs.org/art2014-09-23 11:29 amdisabledWwU75UymG_Atrue

Dallas artist Gabriel Dawe makes physically imposing and yet nebulous sculpture of thread stretched between points on the ceiling and points on the floor. He creates a multifaceted geometric shape, the color changing like a rainbow as the viewers eye shifts around the form. Essentially a simple concept, like the nail-and-thread art that many children make, Dawe has taken this idea to its extreme. In his words: doing that same idea but in space, and pushing the boundaries of what drawing could be, putting steroids in them.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, founded three years ago by billionaire heir to the Wal-Mart fortune Alice Walton, curates a nationwide survey of more than 100 contemporary American artists for the exhibit State of the Art. The museum wants to showcase what it calls under-recognized American artists from outside the media centers of New York and LA. Dawe is one of those artists.

Every time I have a new installation, I start a dialogue with the space. I have to take into account architectural peculiarities of the space, and see where I can accommodate the hooks that the thread it attached to, said artist Gabriel Dawe.

Its going to be a structure that is formed completely with sewing thread, a geometric structure that reaches from the ceiling to the floor, in the central staircase, he said, as the project began. I dont know exactly how much thread I am going to be using, but roughly around 40 and 60 miles of thread. The thread is in 16 different shades, and it starts with blue on the outside, edges and angles, to green then yellow.

Dawe uses large spools of regular sewing thread, that he selects in turn based on their color to create his rainbow, that fools the eye into thinking the tones fade without seam or transition into the next.

Photographs dont do the pieces justice, said Dawe. They do make beautiful photographs, but I think with my pieces you have to see them in real life to catch the subtleties. They change as you move round them; they are almost kinetic; the lines really start messing with your depth perception, and it comes to life when you move around it.

Local Beat is a weekly series on Art Beat that features arts and culture stories from PBS member stations around the nation.

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Dallas artist creates rainbows with 60 miles of thread