Pat Hickman
Pat Hickman
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Pat Hickman received her master’s degree in design and textiles from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1977, and taught at many Bay Area schools for several years. In 1990she began teaching at the University of Hawaii, where she led the fiber arts program. The artist has noted that the Koolau Mountainsrunning along the spine of Oahu remind her of textiles, “velvety and pleated.” This natural landscape has inspired Hickman to work not only with fibers but with the bark and branches of trees, which she associates with life. Some of these sculptures remain in their natural state, while others are then cast in metals (Artists of Hawaii, '99). Professor Emeritus Pat Hickman is featured in a two-person exhibition at OUTSIDE IN in Piermont, NY (2015) and Artspace Company Y on Bowery, NYC NY Reception 10/11/2015; and 7/7?2021 Artist walkthrough week of July 7th 2021 at 208 Bowery NYC group show with Artspace Company Y LLC, charity based show to honor gallerist and artist Miharu Yamamoto
Pat taught at UHM for sixteen years. Her current studio is at the Garnerville Arts and Industrial Center, NY and she lives nearby on the Lower Hudson River. Hickman’s work is in major collections, including the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, the Oakland Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, and the Hawaii State Art Museum, among others. In Hawaii, Hickman’s commission, Nets of Makali’i-Nets of the Pleiades, stands as monumental entrance gates for the Maui Arts and Cultural Center. Hickman twice received NEA Individual Artist’s Grants. In 2005, she was elected a Fellow of the American Craft Council, and she served as President of the Textile Society of America (2008-2010). Hickman curated two traveling exhibits: Innerskins/Outerskins: Gut and Fishskin (1987) and Baskets: Redefining Volume and Meaning (1993).
My individual body of work grew out of an open studio residency at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, ME. Haystack encourages artists to move between studios and media new to us. In the Fab Lab, I non use the digital laser cutter and in the graphic studio, explored embossing and printmaking with woodblocks carved using a software program, based on images of my mother’s last hand writing and other subject matter. New tools, new ways of working for me with welcome surprises. This new work spoke to me of my years of living in Hawai‘i, with proximity to Japan and aesthetic influences which crossed the Pacific.