Bio
Anette Millington explores how visual patterns and textile embellishments convey meaning and communicate in textile sculptures, prints, quilts, and collaborative design projects. As an art and design educator, Anette specializes in reflective pedagogy, materials-based thinking, and interdisciplinary methods.
Anette is Associate Director of the MFA Textiles Program and Assistant Professor of Fashion Systems and Materiality at Parsons School of Design. Prior appointments include the School Associate Dean for First Year, the interdisciplinary year of study completed by every undergraduate student at Parsons.
Upcoming exhibitions include Infinite Forms: Facets, Fabric, and Fiber at the Museum of Mathematics in New York, NY. Selected accomplishments include a recent artist residency at the Center of Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, CT, and the exhibition "Material Reasoning" at the Center for Craft in Asheville, NC, which highlighted recipients of the Center’s Materials-Based Research Grant. Anette has had her writing and artwork featured in national periodicals, including the Surface Design Journal and the upcoming Fiber Art Now's issue "Paper Made II". She has been reviewed online by Hyperallergic, and in print by the Boston Globe.
Anette attended the School of Visual Arts for her MFA and received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art. She lives and works in Beacon, NY and New York City, NY.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Exploring the psychological depth of decorative language, my fiber works and prints merge botanical imagery with principles of symmetry. I engage an expansive set of surface design techniques, including woodblock printing, digital print, silk-screen, embroidery, digitally designed jacquard woven fabric, and quilting. I work back-and-forth from hand to digital, image to pattern, 2D to 3D. Through repeats and reflections, I abstract flora and fauna to create personal symbols and surface patterns for folded geometric sculptures.
Growing up on a small family-owned farm is the foundation for my connection to patterns, cycles, and systems. My childhood included close intimacy with the natural world and a connection between land and memory. My interest in ornamentation and symbology originated in the stained glass windows and brass mythic beasts at my childhood church, which seeped into my imagination. Later in life, I became a mother and turned to patterns to imbue my art with protective force. I am inspired by nature’s use of vibrant and opulent markings on prey to ward off predators and am intrigued by the seemingly contradictory dynamic of attention-seeking and defense.
I design surface embellishment to encase my textile and fiber sculptures, folding and sewing printed fabric and paper into isosceles tetrahedra, which are then arranged and stacked to form large-scale sculptures, objects, and wall pieces. My large faceted columns pulse, and my small seed and vessel forms are poised with sharply faceted wings, prepared for journey. In addition to my fiber sculpture, I create monumental and visceral woodblock prints, which are personal symbols, portraying anthropomorphic guardians, protectors, or guides, embodying strength, wisdom, and vigilance. Following a mythic impulse, my practice links logic and spirit to navigate the unknown.
interdisciplinary & COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS
My interdisciplinary and collaborative design projects connect craft and technology. The work centers on materiality & embellishment, exploring links between patterns in nature, semiotics and the history of ornamentation. These projects also investigate the way in which tools and technology impact the formulation of meaning in material form.
A project of note is Response Patterns, undertaken with the support of the Center for Craft's Materials-Based Research Grant, to invent environmentally responsive embellishment methods for textiles. Another project Coded Textiles, used computation to generate new possibilities for print, embroidered and woven design. The project mined the intersection of embellishment, semiotics and machine thinking and included collaboration with a creative coder to develop digital sketches and textile outcomes.
Higher Education Courses Taught at Parsons School of design
MFA Textiles Major Studio 4 (Capstone Thesis)
MFA Textiles Major Studio 1 & 2 (Embellishment)
Fashion BFA Design Studio Materiality
BFA Creative Technical Studio
Integrated Studio 2 Fashion
Integrated Studio 1
Digital Surface Design
Drawing and Imaging
Graphic Design 1
2D Design
Drawing