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Men/Mend/Amend
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There has been an influx of articles, essays, and
social media ruminations on the fraught state
of masculinity in America. Men stare at us
through our media outlets: the gunmen, the
killers, the rapists, the villains of the moment. In
general, the collective conclusion is straightforward: masculinity is in a state of crisis; the ways
in which men and boys become socialized is
increasingly suspect; they are volatile figures in
the community.
For over a decade, Mark Newport’s work
in fiber has teased out the odd place of contemporary masculinity. Born in Amsterdam, New York,
he received a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the
Kansas City Art Institute and a Masters of Fine
Arts from the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago. He lives and teaches in Bloomfield Hills,
Michigan, at the Cranbrook Academy of Art
where he is the Artist-in-Residence in the Department of Fiber.
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Newport is steeped in both popular culture references to men, as well as the history of
textile work. He has utilized the hyper-ideal figures
of comic book superheroes, professional athletes,
cowboys, and rock stars as ways to assess the state
of men and masculinity. These bombastic signs of
maleness are combined with the soft ethos of textile processes like embroidery, knitting, mending,
and stitching. Superhero costumes become fuzzy,
full-body knit sweaters, and the bulging muscles
of familiar masked crusaders are obscured by
beads and French knots. But there is more here
than a surprising contradiction, and the conflict
between what is thought of as typically masculine
and typically feminine soon fades to leave us with
something more nuanced.
In the Sweaterman Series (2007–2011),
Newport seeks out the protective potential of
sweaters, the notion of warmth and comfort from
his childhood experience of matriarchal care. The
Surface Design Journal
©2016 Surface Design Association, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited.
sweater is a kind of shield, physical
in its guard against the cold, but
also psychically a symbol of security. He applies this symbol upon
his superhero costumes. The striations of knit and purl, the cables
and the baubles in bright colors,
reminiscent of the sweaters that
idealized mothers and grandmothers might make to keep families warm and cozy, now assume
superhuman status, like force
fields around the body. These
works are an amalgamation of our
expectations of the signs of safety
and protection—the “man behind
the mask” and the warm embrace
of wooly things brought together.
Yet the material and semiotic contradictions at the heart of these
works make the Sweaterman costumes monstrous as well. Void of a
hero to wear them, we project into
the costumes both dark and light,
villain and hero.
Newport places his gendered body into the mix, engaging
in performative gestures of public
knitting, as in Heroic Efforts
(2009), featured in the group exhibition make:craft at Otis College
of Art and Design in Los Angeles,
California in 2010. Wearing the
heroic symbols he creates addresses our cultural imagination of the status of a
male protector, our concerns about patriarchal presence. We are confronted by
the strangeness of the costumed, or uniformed, male body. “Who is that man?”
some audience members murmur. “What is he doing here?”
The performance of the superhero costumes is humorous, but the uncertainty of the figure’s true intentions reminds us of real situations where men in
public or domestic positions of power, meant to protect us, might turn upon us.
No image of Newport’s performance of superhero costumes strikes such
an unnerving vein as Zack Reads (2009). In the photograph, a young boy sits
upon a couch in a seeming domestic space. Yet directly behind the boy, a mysterious, obscured figure stands nearby. Covered in the bumpy, alien surface of handknit baubles, the figure is both menacing and protective. We are invited to view
the one who protects with skepticism, and Newport generates a contested
ABOVE: MARK NEWPORT
Sampler: Poster Child for Crime 2005,
hand embroidery on comic book cover,
10.25" x 6.75". Private collection.
OPPOSITE PAGE: MARK NEWPORT
Heroes Past: Lyle Alzedo 1995, beads,
trading card, hand stitching, 3.5" x 2.5".
Private Collection.
Heroes Past: Jerry Rice 1995, beads,
trading card, hand stitching, 3.5" x 2.5".
Private Collection.
Heroes Past: Mike Singletary 1995,
beads, trading card, hand stitching,
3.5" x 2.5". Private Collection.
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©2016 Surface Design Association, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited.
His works are self-reflective:
the gaze turned directly upon himself
and his gender experience.
ground around our preconceptions, desires, fears,
and anxieties concerning men and their roles in
contemporary life. As a father himself, these
grounds are personal ones, too.
Though making direct references to traditional
“women’s work” in knit, stitch, and the soft world of
cloth, Newport’s early work with superheroes notably has little to do with women. His works are
self-reflective: the gaze turned directly upon himself and his gender experience. Many of these
works are situated in a closed loop around the notion of masculinity, and do not engage in irresponsible or uninformed speculation of women’s roles
or obligations. Explored through photographic
projects called Alter Egos (2009), this notion of the
strangeness of the male specific world is riddled
with conflicted expectation.
So the question remains: what can be done
about male perpetrated violence, and who is responsible for enacting necessary changes? In a
particularly pointed embroidered comic book
cover, Sampler: Spiderman Responsibility (2012),
it is those who assume positions of power and privilege who are
to be held responsible. The sampler offers a peculiar parallel
through the history of more traditional samplers. Embroidery,
used to educate young girls on basic spelling and proper deportment, collides with the body of the comic book superhero
who, for better or for worse, participates in the socialization of
young boys.
Newport’s nuanced works help place the onus of understanding and correcting the problematics of male identity
back onto men, whether these problematics deal with the glorification of violence, the praise of emotional distance, or the objectification of women. It is tragic though, that there are very few
public spaces for men to be with each other that are not immediately problematized, for it is in safe communities of boys and
men where these issues must be addressed. It is crucially important for men to communally engage around these issues and be
mutually responsible for each other’s actions. The responsibility
of mending the social and cultural deficits men have accrued
does not fall on women, so often cast as the caretakers in society; this responsibility falls squarely on other men.
The peculiar culture of transition from boyhood into
manhood is an overarching theme that can be seen throughout
Newport’s work and interests. The American fantasy of masculinity is centered increasingly on the notion that men maintain
their boyhood interests long into adulthood. Boyhood interests,
like comic books and video games, are increasingly acceptable
adult pursuits.
In a series of heavily embroidered textiles referencing
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RIGHT: MARK NEWPORT Sweaterman 6 2010, acrylic yarn, buttons, hand knitting, 80" x 23" x 6". Private collection.
ABOVE: MARK NEWPORT Argyleman 2007, acrylic yarn, buttons, hand knitting, 80" x 23" x 6".
Courtesy of the Greg Kucera Gallery.
Surface Design Journal
©2016 Surface Design Association, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited.
ABOVE: MARK NEWPORT Zack Reads (from the Alter Egos series) 2009, archival ink jet on paper, 13" x 19", Edition of 8.
BELOW: MARK NEWPORT At the Game (from the Alter Egos series) 2009, archival ink jet on paper, 13" x 19", edition of 8.
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©2016 Surface Design Association, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited.
MARK NEWPORT Nevermind 2014, hand embroidery on flannel, 20" x 18". Courtesy of Simone DeSousa Gallery, Detroit, MI.
popular alternative rock album covers, Newport
thinks of his own young adulthood. He writes,
“what we know and what we want to be true of
our self, become mixed in a stew of hope, fantasy,
shame, consumerism, rebellion, and realization. My
choice of album covers has as much to do with my
actual past choices as it does my rewriting of my
history.” The repetitive gestures of these embroideries, such as his plaid reinterpretation of Nirvana’s 1991 album Nevermind, are in many ways
antithetical to the embroidery on top of the bodies of comic book heroes. Rather than articulate
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the space of a body, these record covers frame an
absence of the rock star, focusing our attention instead on the ground of the fabric and the empty
silhouette. A kind of poignant refrain looms over
these works, one that thinks of the unfulfilled, and
how such unrealized ideals influence our adult
lives.
Newport has recently turned his attention away from the ostentatious colors, imagery,
and symbols of comic superheroes towards something quieter, a seeming divergence from questions about masculinity, safety, and heroics. He
Surface Design Journal
©2016 Surface Design Association, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited.
What is to be mended is not limited to cloth itself. It is something cultural,…
RIGHT: MARK NEWPORT Mend 5 2016, hand embroidery on muslin, 17" x 13". Detail ABOVE.
Photos: Tim Thayer. Courtesy of Simone DeSousa Gallery, Detroit, MI.
traveled throughout the United Kingdom and
Northern Europe studying traditional mending
techniques from first hand samples. His new works
are fields of muted sutures. The pink and brown
tones of the thread upon the fabric make direct
references to flesh, and each delicately handled
rectangle of stitched cloth becomes a fragment of
the body, a snipped segment of skin. The stitches
spread across the field of cloth in dense parallels
and tangents, in elaborate labyrinths and fancy
grids, extending beyond what one might imagine
as the parameters of a simple, utilitarian mend.
What is to be mended is not limited to cloth itself.
It is something cultural, outside the frame of the
body as well.
The mending of cloth and the suturing of
skin closely mirror each other, a rich poetic for
Newport as well as a powerful political gesture in
the context of his larger practice. He writes, “As I
fold my son’s laundered clothes, the holes in the
knees of his pants remind me of my childhood exploits, the falls that punctuated each adventure
and the scars I carry from those accidents … darning and suturing leave a mark, a scar. Each pierces
the substrate it is repairing, performing a modest
violence upon what is to be mended, and remind-
ing each of us of our
sensitivity, vulnerability, and mortality.”
This reflection upon
fatherhood, as well as
the presence of the
stitch as an agent of
material or physical healing, traces and links together a larger symbolic cycle, one that describes
the anxiety of idealized masculinity, violence, and
potential mending as primary concerns in Newport’s work.
Mark Newport is represented by Duane Reed Gallery in
St Louis, Missouri, and Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle,
Washington. He is the guest juror for SDA’s upcoming
Crafting Community: Inaugural International Exhibition in
Print, which will be released in late December as the
Winter 2016/2017 issue of Surface Design Journal.
Mark Newport www.marknewportartist.com
Cranbrook Academy of Art www.cranbrookart.edu
—Jovencio de la Paz is an artist, writer, and educator
living in Eugene, OR, where he is Assistant Professor and
Curricular Head of Fibers at the University of Oregon.
www.jovenciodelapaz.org
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©2016 Surface Design Association, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited.