Margot Becker

  • "Our human understanding of time is rooted in our body as it relates to the cosmos and as it relates to its creations... the duodecimal system through which we understand and divide the fourth dimension comes to us through astronomy, lunar cycle, and our finger joints.  Since the invention of this ancient textile technology, the act of weaving has been understood as the physical manifestation of time."

    -Margot Becker

     

  • B. 1986, OAK BLUFFS, MA

    LIVES AND WORKS IN HUDSON, NY

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  • Margot Becker is an artist, weaver, and educator based in Hudson, NY. Through tactile processes, she explores the sense of...
    Photograph by Stella Yoon

    Margot Becker is an artist, weaver, and educator based in Hudson, NY. Through tactile processes, she explores the sense of place, the natural environment, and the connection between the individual and the communal subconscious. Since graduating from Bard in 2009, Margot's path has taken her through nearly a decade of total immersion in animal husbandry and millwork to better understand the possibilities and limitations of sustainable textile production.

     

    Both a forager and an idealist, Becker's work engages with ecology and a desire to understand the origins of cloth and the lives affected by it. Re-calibrating her idealism with an artistic practice, Becker has centered her work through always being present, from hands-on spinning, dying, weaving, performance, and drawing to temporal site-specific weavings. Her work has been exhibited in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston.

     

    Margot Becker has attended residencies at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, ACRE, Mildred's Lane, Rabbit Island and AZ West. She received her BA in studio art from Bard College in 2009 and her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2020 where she was awarded the Edwin Anthony & Adelaine Boudreaux Cadogan Scholarship and the Toni A. Lowenthal Memorial Scholarship for Excellence in Textiles. Her work will be included in the upcoming group exhibition Shift Change at the Pacific Northwest Quilt & Fiber Arts Museum, La Conner, WA.

     

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  • Detail of flower, snake, egg, 2023
  • Works
  • Performance, 24-Hour Weaving, 2018 Performance, 24-Hour Weaving, 2018 Performance, 24-Hour Weaving, 2018 Performance, 24-Hour Weaving, 2018

    Performance

    24-Hour Weaving, 2018

    This piece was performed on April 28 – 29, 2018 as part of the 24-Hour Drone Fest at Basilica Hudson during which Becker wove for 24 hours straight.  Every four hours the cloth was cut from the loom and hung in the main hall to mark the passing of time.

     

    A meditation on ancient industry, time keeping, and bodily stamina, this 24 hour performance called on ritual and patience to create a record of time and space in the form of cloth.  Informed and driven by its environment, the resulting textile presented in six parts reflects its factory-turned-temple container.  Our human understanding of time is rooted in our body as it relates to the cosmos and as it relates to its creations.  The duodecimal system through which we understand and divide the fourth dimension comes to us through astronomy, lunar cycle, and our finger joints.  Since the invention of this ancient textile technology, the act of weaving has been understood as the physical manifestation of time.  This piece honors the history and common mythologies of the craft and offers itself as a method of transporting these through our present and into the future.

  • Photograph by Wyndham Garnet
  • Exhibitions