Joanne Segal Brandford

Joanne Segal Brandford (1933 – April 5, 1994) was a pioneer and leader in the fiber arts community as an artist, basketmaker, master dyer, teacher, scholar of ancient and contemporary world textile traditions, and art museum curator. Her artwork included woven textiles, lace, looped structures, nets, and interlaced sprang. Using non-traditional materials and techniques, she is best known for her basket-like forms. Brandford gradually accepted the moniker . Brandford is a namesake for The Brandford/Elliott Award for Excellence in Fiber Art, awarded biennially at the Textile Society of America Symposium. Her expertise was in ethnic textiles, with a focus on North, Central, and Andean American textiles. Brandford died at age 60 on April 5, 1994.

Early life and education Joanne Segal Brandford was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as Joanne Peppi Segal in 1933. She attended the University of California, Berkeley for undergraduate and graduate degrees, In 1955, Brandford completed a Bachelor of Arts in Decorative Arts and went on to complete a Master of Arts in Design in 1967.

Subsequently, Brandford brought the educational philosophy of UC Berkeley to the East coast by teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design, Montclair State College, Goddard College, Wheelock College, Massachusetts College of Art, and the Radcliffe Seminars.

Throughout her career, Brandford taught and studied various aspects of the fiber arts at a variety of different institutions and conferences. Her research and curation allowed Brandford to become an expert in ancient textiles and working techniques,

In 1993, Brandford presented her basketry studies and artwork in a lecture and an artist statement for the catalogue BASKETS: Redefining Volume and Meaning at the University of Hawaii Art Gallery.

The early works In 1965 and 1966, Brandford began working with silk screen printing while studying at UC Berkeley. She manipulated the patterns so that they would not repeat in ways that were expected of screen printing at that time. The patterns were curvilinear geometric designs with some pieces being cut apart and reorganized, and with some pieces she would rotate the silk screen 180 degrees to alter a single row on a piece. The rotation of the silk screen can be seen on pieces such as a black and white cotton weaving that Brandford created in 1965.

It was during this time period that Brandford became an expert in using vat dyes, as well as working with other dyes, such as indigo sol, to create tie-dye pieces with muted colors and subtle shifts in color. Brandford would use different patterning techniques, including folding, stitching, binding, and pleating, to create the designs that her early work was recognized by. attaining her degree in 1969.

The final styles that are classified into Brandford's early works are her weavings made from 1970 to 1974 and her first 3-dimensional sprang pieces. Goldberg describes one ikat-dyed weaving named Fragment Series II as "[illustrating Brandford's] achievement as a master dyer." In the early 1970s, Brandford began experimenting with 3-dimensional, sculptural forms using sprang. Brandford used sprang throughout her career.

Nets The second grouping of works that define Brandford's career are nets. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Brandford began experimenting with the creation of nets using materials such as raffia, nylon, monofilament, and rattan, as well as using new techniques. One such piece was Red-Green II (1977/1978), two linen and cotton nets that were hung apart from each other to create "drawings" that would change depending on viewing angle.

Brandford created nets to explore "ambiguity, illusion, [and] translucency." In the late 1970s, Brandford moved to Ithaca, NY, She further said:

Brandford extensively studied North American basketry techniques, although she did not use traditional basketry techniques such as twining or plaiting for her pieces. Many of her basket-like works of this period are painted or dyed rattan and pandanus. and at the Roberson Museum and Science Center in Binghamton, New York, she curated the Our Shining Heritage, Textile Arts of the Slavs and Their Neighbors exhibition. In 1984, she worked again with the Peabody Museum to curate From the Tree Where the Bark Grows, North American Baskets, which was a traveling exhibition. Also in 1984, Brandford catalogued and photographed the Native American basket collection at Wadsworth Athenaeum, in Hartford, Connecticut.

From 1986 to 1987, Brandford served as Basketmaker-in-Residence at Manchester Polytechnic in England. When speaking about being chosen for the position, Brandford stated, "I was very concerned about my role there as a basketmaker and also as a teacher." A New York Times review of the exhibition described Basket IV as being made "with natural fibers, in an open construction" and that it "seems to have been intentionally crushed down to give it solidity and significance." Basket IV, created in 1981, was a dyed rattan form that was woven while wet so that when it dried it would maintain its basket-like shape.

During 1993, Brandford exhibited multiple pieces and lectured at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu for Hickman's Baskets: Redefining Volume and Meaning. In the December 1993 article "Baskets speaking volumes" in American Craft (magazine), Morse described Brandford's work as "[providing] a transition between abstraction and figuration." She went on to say, "[Reclining Figure] eloquently captures the gesture of its title in an open mesh of rattan wiped with acrylic paint that suggests psychic weathering." Morse went on to note that a correlation could be seen between Brandford's work and that of Elliott.

In 1993, Brandford began work on her final pieces. One piece that came out of this time in her life was Shelter, a rattan and kozo basket that measures 9.5 in x 24 in x 25 in. Her works and their titles became self-reflective as she approached the end of her life. multiple shows at the Amos Eno Gallery in New York, where Brandford was a member, Fiberwork by Joanne Segal Brandford at 171 Cedar Arts Center in Corning, and Networks at Cornerhouse Gallery in Manchester. One such exhibition was Recent Nets and Baskets 1986-1989.

Legacy and death The Brandford/Elliott Award The Brandford/Elliott Award for Excellence in Fiber Art is presented biennially at the Textile Society of America Biennial Symposium. Award nominees are selected from among emerging fiber artists perceived to be willing to take creative risks with their work. The award was created in 1995 under the name Lillian Elliott Award (LEA) and renamed to The Brandford/Elliott Award for Excellence in Fiber Art (B/EA) in 2012. The award was created to honor the lives, work, and impacts of Lillian Elliot and Joanne Segal Brandford on the fiber arts. Oversight of the award was transferred to the Textile Society of America in 2020.

Memorials, retrospectives, and notable works In the fall of 1982, Brandford's work was included in a lace workshop that was organized by the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, Office of Public Programs. A Basketmaker's Legacy: Joanne Segal Brandford, 1933-1994, was a memorial retrospective exhibition at Sybaris Gallery, Royal Oak, Michigan, from October 21, 1995, until December 2, 1995.

Brandford's works are represented in numerous permanent private and public collections. Peppi's Flowers, 1988, named for Brandford's childhood nickname, is a pigmented silk knotless net that resides in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Bundle, 1992, a painted rattan, kozo, and nylon piece, is in the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection. Shelter, 1993, a dyed and painted Japanese kozo fiber and rattan piece, is in the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts collection. The Cornell Fashion and Textile Collection holds multiple pieces from Brandford's private collection as well as one of her works, a knotless net made of nylon filament fiber made between 1980 and 1989. Jack Lenor Larson's private collection contains multiple pieces by Brandford.