BIO
Erica Dincalci is a fiber from the Bay Area, California. Her weavings investigate sentimental patterns and consider their persistence through generations and culture. In vibrant abstract cut up weavings, patterns are broken and healed through a resilient stitch. She attended a Summerfield Waldorf School and Farm, New York University, and California College of the Arts. After undergrad she struggled to find her place, leading to years of addiction. In recovery, creating art helped refocused her life. She recently earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Her work has been featured in exhibitions nationally including at the de Young Museum, diRosa Center, MarinMoca, Spring/Break Art Fair, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, and Co-Prosperity. She has been featured in Fiber Art now, and KRON4 News Live! in the Bay. Selected awards include CERF+ Get Ready Grant, SebArts Artist Accelerator program, Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency, Praxis Digital Weaving Residency and Haystack Open Studio Residency.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My fiber art delves into the interplay of addiction, grief, and recovery, reformatting sentimental patterns as metaphors for transformation. Patterns migrate from decorative ornamentation to behaviors passed down generationally. Tracing these patterns reveal entanglement of memory, material, and culture. Through investigation, embodied weaving, layering, and compiling these patterns, I illuminate their power over history and everyday life. Using post-consumer acrylic yarn, natural and synthetic dye, paint, grommets, beads and metal, I question material hierarchies and challenge our ideas of value and legitimacy. I strive to collapse boundaries, exposing the porous nature of category. By cutting my weavings, I break unwanted patterns of addiction and behavior; through a healing stitch, I reassembles them into something new, moving toward a speculative future shaped by growth, renewal and the power of color to heal and revitalize.