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Artist makes Sioux City Art Center razzle and dazzle

Swatches | October 1, 2024 | By:

The final installation of Razzle Dazzle draped and secured over the Sioux City Art Center and its Gilchrist Learning Center in Sioux City, Iowa. Razzle Dazzle was installed and on display Aug. 31–Sept. 1 for the city’s ArtSplash 2024 event. Image: Adam Gonshorowski

Amanda Browder, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based artist dedicated to making contemporary art accessible, collaborated with the Sioux City Art Center in Sioux City, Iowa, for her latest piece called Razzle Dazzle. It was installed and on view to the public Aug. 31–Sept. 1 for the city’s ArtSplash 2024 event.

Using upcycled and donated fabric, Browder worked with local volunteers to construct a large, brightly colored textile artwork draped over portions of the Sioux City Art Center building and its Gilchrest Learning Center. Community members donated the fabric used, and Browder and volunteers sewed the pieces of fabric at a series of public sewing events in the months leading up to the installation. Image: Adam Gonshorowski

Amanda Browder, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based contemporary artist, poses surrounded by fabric donations in October 2023 at the Gilchrist Learning Center in Sioux City, Iowa. Browder’s latest piece, Razzle Dazzle, consists of fabric scraps sewn together by volunteers at a series of public sewing days leading up to its installation on Aug. 31. Image: Sioux City Art Center

The public sewing days were open to all ages and experience levels and hosted at places around Sioux City, including breweries, schools, churches and community centers. Browder taught attendees how to use a sewing machine and helped volunteers sew the pieces of fabric together to create a mosaic of different colors and textures, all without the pressure of perfection.

“The beauty of these projects is that because they’re so large, it doesn’t have to be a perfect stitch. It can be super crooked, backward, upside-down. It really alleviates the fear and the worry that comes with sewing,” Browder says.

Amanda Browder and volunteers at a public sewing day at West Middle School in Sioux City, Iowa. Public sewing days were held at various places around the city, including schools, breweries, churches and community centers. Browder says volunteers of every age and background participated. Image: Adam Gonshorowski

Browder is known for these community-based art projects. Originally from Missoula, Mont., she developed a passion for fabric in high school after discovering her love of thrift stores and sustainability. She created her first large-scale fabric installation, Rapunzel, in 2006, made of fabric she’d collected, sewn together and thrown outside her three-story-apartment window. Later, she moved to Brooklyn and worked with community members in 2010 to collect fabric and make Future Phenomena, sponsored by the North Brooklyn Public Arts Collective.

After completing Future Phenomena, she says, “I started to get donations from all over the place.”

She went on to complete projects in multiple cities, including Chromatic Hi-Five in Toronto, Ont., Canada, in 2011, Magic Chromacity in Birmingham, Ala., in 2014, and Power Plant Beloit in Beloit, Wis., in 2018. Before Razzle Dazzle, her most recent project was In Times We Gather in 2023 in Blue Hill, Maine, at the First Congressional Church of Blue Hill.

Three volunteers at a public sewing day. Behind them are long sections of Razzle Dazzle waiting to be sewn into the final project. Image: Adam Gonshorowski

Browder says organizations and community members usually approach her to initiate a project after securing funding from grants or other sources. She then works with the community to coordinate donation sites and schedule public sewing days and finally, install the piece.

“By the end, this massive celebration celebrates all the labor we’ve done together,” she says.

Volunteers help transport Razzle Dazzle outside the Sioux City Art Center to be installed on Aug. 31. Image: Adam Gonshorowski

Razzle Dazzle was funded through a Grants for Arts Projects award from NEA. The project also received funding from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. Browder says that after her projects are taken down, she stores them in her archives, and she plans to reinstall and display the artworks in the future.

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