Bio
Ramekon O’Arwiststers
Growing up in Jim Crow South during the Civil Rights Movement, I had a safe haven, quilting with my grandmother where I was embraced, important and special. These early memories prompted my nascent series of unique crocheted, ceramic sculptures, "Mending." Employing ordinary household or decorative pottery, broken and discarded, I combined traditional crafts into a dimensional woven tapestry, stripping both cloth and ceramic of their intended function.
In my new series of sculptures "Cheesecake," the works have transformed from something broken, needing mending to fully determined and self-aware. Being Black and Queer, the full complexity of the moniker Cheesecake, used to objectify an attractive, sexualized man or woman is not lost to me. Instead I embrace it, subverting the demeaning implication in describing my sculpture. Weaving textiles around large, broken ceramics is a stand-in for the feelings of anxiety, fear, and despair associated with the permanence of racism and homophobia. Combining lacy, embellished fabrics with ceramics contributed by students and faculty from California State University at Long Beach, my sculptural hybrids embody both danger and seduction.
I am the founder of Crochet Jam, a community-arts project infused with folk-art traditions that foster a creative culture in cooperative relationships. Born in Kernersville, North Carolina, I earned a M.Div. from Duke University Divinity School in 1986. I was an artist-in-residence at the de Young Museum, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and the Vermont Studio Center. Grants and Awards include Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue, NY, the San Francisco Foundation and the San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Program. I received the 2014 Eureka Fellow, awarded by the Fleishhacker Foundation in San Francisco. My work has been featured in the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, 7×7 Magazine, Artnet, the San Francisco Examiner, and Brian Boucher’s Daily Dispatch.
IMAGE: Cheesecake #2 2019, textiles, ceramics from CSULB ceramic program, 19 x 17 x 12 inches.
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Features and Highlights
Flowered Thorns
Ramekon O’Arwisters:
Exhibition Dates: September 11 – October 23, 2021
Reception: Saturday, September 11 from 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Patricia Sweetow Gallery
Ramekon O’Arwisters new sculpture, Flowered Thorns, dives into the abyss with large, sharp ceramic shards strapped and knotted together, embellished with shredded fabric. They stand as cultural totems, embodying the couture of drag, along with the rich history of African American quilting. This series has been brewing in his studio the past two years as Covid, racial injustice, climate change and political chicanery were normalized.
Headlands Center for the Arts:
Artist in Residence
Program 2020—2021 : Summer I
While at Headlands :
“I will be expanding work on a new series of sculptures which I call Cheesecake. This body of work emerged from the earlier series, Mending, using everyday household pottery crocheted into a fabric of dimensional tapestry. Cheesecake is a series of knotted, twisted fabric and yarn, embellished and integrated with shards of broken ceramics. The process is developed intuitively with attention given to balance, form, structure, color, and texture. The underpinnings of the work come from African-American quilting, sewing, mending, and crocheting.
Working at Headlands will allow for exploration of scale. I’ve also been thinking of adding additional materials in my practice which would be difficult to conceive in limited space.”