Join us February Art Walk for a spectacular exhibition by Missouri-based artists Hannah and Blake Sanders, who work collaboratively under the name Orange Barrel Industries.

In their exhibition, On the Hook, collaborative couple Orange Barrel Industries employs printed, repurposed fibers and craft traditions to share their domestic bliss amid concerns over a sobering ecological future.

Statement:

The collaborations offered in On the Hook use the nuclear family and consumption of natural resources as complementary metaphors. Domestic bliss, as celebrated in America, is reliant on outmoded, gendered roles and division of labor. Methods of extraction, manufacturing, and consumption of resources are equally tired and inefficient. In both cases the warmth and comfort gained through old modes is potentially volatile and wholly unsustainable. Recent pieces extend the metaphor—incorporating the day-to-day labor of child-rearing, and how new mouths to feed means a bigger mess to clean up. These pieces are executed using print and fiber arts techniques employing repurposed remnants from the home, reinforcing the domestic allusions, while thwarting our instincts toward quick consumption. 

Consumerism has led to a planet awash with stuff. We strive to reduce the ecological impact of our work any way we can, so that humanity’s descendants are not on the hook for our greed and shortsightedness. A transition from paper to discarded, secondhand fibers, plastics, and other detritus rescues material from the landfill. Crocheted pieces—inspired by traditional rag rugs—incorporate proofs on fabric, used clothes and linens from our own lives, those of friends and family, and sometimes strangers. The resulting works document the history and detritus of our shared lives, literally linking the contributors together, emphasizing our shared history and considered future. The process uses nearly every scrap, continuing a tradition of salvaged material passed down through quilting circles and Japanese boro, garments mended and patched ad infinitum. Sewing is a metaphor for global interconnectedness, as well. We are all linked in an elaborate tapestry, so when one thread begins to unravel, we’re on the hook to stitch the collective together.  

The large works in this exhibition appropriately describe the vast depth of humanity’s shared ecological imprint, and the monumental effort needed to change our ways to diminish future impact. The University of Oklahoma is an ideal location for this body of work. The state economy depends in large part on fossil fuel extraction–pulling at the seams of the landscape to sap geological history for ephemeral contemporary gain. It now suffers the consequences as climate change raises temperatures and makes the weather in the already dangerous Tornado Alley, more erratic. Ironically, and wisely, the state is harnessing the wind as a leader in the green energy movement. This development is more in line with the stewardship professed by the Indigenous nations currently residing in Oklahoma, many of whom were forcibly relocated by the avarice and ignorance of the rapidly expanding young United States. Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where we currently live, was on the Trail of Tears. We pay tribute to the Indigenous communities who lived in the region by striving for a more reciprocal relationship with the land through planting native wildflowers and sharing the bounty of our garden with all the wildlife who people our neighborhood, forbidding pesticides and gas powered tools on the little plot we’re privileged to foster. The work we share with you retains that mindfulness, conserving materials and encouraging protection of and mutual exchange with nature.