BALTIMORE— Both sides now, the resounding title of Elizabeth Talford Scott’s exhibition at Goya Contemporary, alludes to the artist’s uncanny ability to see not only what her materials are but also what they could become. Born on Blackstock Plantation near Chester, South Carolina, Scott (1916-2011) grew up as the child of sharecroppers who worked the same land as her enslaved grandparents. By necessity, his ancestors were masters at “making something out of nothing”, creating what was needed from what was freely available. It was a legacy that would enrich the creative lives of their descendants for generations.
During the Great Migration, Scott left the rural south and moved to Baltimore, where she worked variously as a housekeeper, cook, and caregiver. After her daughter left for college, she returned to quilting, a skill she learned as a child. But “quilt” is not a sufficient description for the extraordinary pieces of fabric she began building in the 1970s. Many are in low relief, with puffy compartments or fanciful pockets of pebbles or shells, held in place by reused nets that she stitched from sacks of onions. In others, tangible chorus lines of fabric knots or faux pearls follow the jagged line of Scott’s hand-stitched edges. The airy woolen fringes she favored offered spirits to come and go, she once told Amy Eva Raehse, director of Goya Contemporary.
Prior to cataract surgery, Scott perceived the world through a mediating canvas that altered his vision. The first two of the show’s 13 works, “Infected Eye” (1979–80) and “Sick Eye” (1980), are autobiographical. Each composition focuses on a circle embroidered with radiating appendages that evoke the pupil and the iris. Despite the areas of colorful fabric and yarn, the background palette of amber, beige, and black establishes a dominant dark tone.
“Abstract 1” (1983) is akin to both the historical quilts and the free expression of the paintings of Arshile Gorky or Conrad Marca-Relli, an art she is unlikely to know. Scott chose a variety of embroidery stitches and colored threads to embellish the borders between his patches, a nod to the tradition of crazy quilts. But the playful composition of the work is unique to him. The exuberant shapes at its center partly escape the constraints of a disorderly grid. The only “true grid” in the work is on printed or woven off-cuts with ready-made hatching.
In “Birthday” (1997), the compartments shaped by Scott’s gloriously disheveled grid look like farmland seen from above, each with a story to tell, if only one knew how to read it. Several pieces include playful creatures and imaginative gardens, water and sky that testify to the artist’s rural upbringing. For her friends, she constructed healing shawls or prayer shields that reflect her spiritual life.
Whether nurtured by nature, nurture, or both, Elizabeth Scott’s daughter, Joyce J. Scott, developed a singular artistic practice that would be honored with a MacArthur Award. When they lived in the same household, the two women enjoyed a unique synergy, sometimes sharing materials or working side by side on separate projects. In Joyce’s words, “My mother was my muse.”
Both Sides Now: The Spirituality, Resilience and Innovation of Elizabeth Talford Scott continues at the Goya Contemporary (Mill Center Studio 214, 3000 Chestnut Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland) through April 21. The exhibition was curated by Amy Eva Raehse.
