Sandra C. Haynes
Podcast #4	Barbara Chase-Riboud
Isis, 1989
Artist-in-Residence Fine Art Collection
Shatford Library and Boone Sculpture Garden
Pasadena City College
January  2007

Barbara Chase-Riboud was the fourth Artist-in-Residence at Pasadena City College.  She was here during the spring of 1990.  The work of sculpture that she donated to the school is on the main floor of the library near the circulation desk.  From the south entrance of the rotunda where we just looked at the Tom Bostelle mural, ascend a flight of stairs to the main floor.  At the top of the stairs, turn to your right and you will notice a short, vertical display case with a Plexiglas box sitting on a wooden base.  Inside is Isis by Barbara Chase-Riboud.

As an art historian, I am aware of the decades --no, centuries of neglect and oblivion faced by women artists in terms of inclusion in the canon of art history.  Thus, I was particularly excited about Chase-Riboud taking part in the Artist-in-Residence Program here (17 years ago!).  But, interestingly enough, when I mentioned to Chase-Riboud at the time, that she was the "first" woman artist to take part in the program, she raised her eyebrows somewhat disapprovingly.  I understood immediately that she had just indicated that she did not see herself as a "woman" artist, but as an artist.  And, although she is proud to be an African-American, and her work-- poetry, prose, and visual arts is deeply rooted in her identity, she undeniably creates on a universally meaningful plane.  

Born in Philadelphia, Chase-Riboud was a prodigy, who received a strict academic education in the visual arts at the Tyler School of Art and Design.  In 1957 she went to Rome on a fellowship to study at the American Academy. The following year, she traveled in Egypt for some three months, referring to the experience as "a revelation."  She stated about this time, "I suddenly saw how insular the Western World was vis ˆ-vis the nonwhite, non-Christian world.  The blast of Egyptian culture was irresistible.  The sheer magnificence of it. The elegance and perfection, the timelessness, the depth." (Quoted in Selz, Peter and Janson, Anthony F. Barbara Chase-Riboud: Sculptor, p. 18)  Further visits to Africa in the 1960's and 70's had a major impact on her development as an artist, particularly in the combination of fiber with metal, which you can see in the work she donated to P.C.C.  Many traditional African masks are formed from composite materials--feathers, raffia, hemp, and other vegetable fibers, along with wood, clay or metal cores.  But Chase-Riboud's works do not mimic African works; they are original.

Beginning in the 1970's and spanning the 1990's, Chase-Riboud began a series of works inspired by the historical Ptolemaic, Egyptian queen, Cleopatra.

A major work, Cleopatra's Door, (1984) was part of the gallery exhibition that coincided with her residency here at P.C. C.  The work presented to P.C.C. that you are looking at now, is called Isis.  Isis is of course, the name of the Egyptian goddess of fertility and healing and a name invoked by Cleopatra herself, who was called the "New Isis," the embodiment of the beautiful, powerful goddess of ancient Egyptian myth.

Many of Chase-Riboud's works, like Cleopatra's Door, are large pieces that dwarf the viewer.  Isis is small, but serves as a microcosm of Chase-Riboud's artistry and technique. 

Horizontally wound and braided silk yarn has been knotted and twisted into a fifteen-inch tall, square tower crowned by a shiny silver module of cast aluminum, which catches the light that makes its way through the library window.  This crowning module is no more than two inches in height and is configured with channels that look like the earth torn open -- pitted gullies wending their way from front to back.  These undulating channels seem also to imitate soft fabric or water flow.  Each of the four vertical sides of the compact, yarn support has a different configuration and texture.  You need to move around the piece to see the full, rich textural quality of it from every angle.  Tiny braids of yarn are juxtaposed with large, flowing skeins, some with one or two threads of yarn pulled out, escaping the vertical capsule.  

Isis is a quintessential example of the incredibly precise craftsmanship of the artist, but on an intimate scale. 

References:

Chase-Riboud, Barbara. Home page. 8 January 2007
	http://chaseriboud.free.fr/index.html 

Newton, Edmund.  "Now Showing: The Artist at Work," Los Angeles Times, 3 May 	1990, J1.

Rubinstein, Charlotte Streifer.  Barbara Chase-Riboud at Pasadena City College 	Exhibition catalogue.  Pasadena: Pasadena City College Art Gallery, April 	1990. 

Selz, Peter and Anthony F. Janson.  Barbara Chase-Riboud: Sculptor. New York: 	Harry Abrams, Inc. 1999.

Haynes(c)2007