Lily Zane – “The Thread That Binds”

July 26 - August 23, 2020.

From an early age, Lily Zane knew that art and “making” would be part of her life’s story. Making is how she makes her living, in the textile industry. She says that the art element would come later in life, in part to mend the parts of her life that needed to be stitched back together.

She attended the Massachusetts College of Art, where she credits Professor Marilyn Pappas with helping her find her “fibers tribe,” and teaching her how thread, weaving, dying and sewing fabric all merged into a compilation that still fuels her to this day.

“As a child,” Zane recalls, “there was nothing better than bundling up and taking a nap.” This love of bundling up for a nap led her to answer a two-line advertisement in the late 1980s for a job with Polo Ralph Lauren Home Collection, where she was hired by Nancy Vignola as a Bedding Designer.

“I became part of a machine that still produces the most luxurious blankets, pillows and sheeting on the planet,” she says. “I’d landed in nap heaven. And there began the ‘making’ phase of my life. I have been honored to work with so many talented ‘makers,’ fellow designers, mill owners, reps and factory production managers too numerous to list who shaped the knowledge that fed my 30+ year passion of making. To this day I’m perfectly content in feathering my nest with all the home textiles I had a part in making.”

She calls herself a mynah bird at heart, after the bird known for gathering bits and pieces that catch its eye and storing them in its nest. “This making lifestyle of mine filled my luggage with Indian silks, countless lengths of embroidery, a sari and the magical moment of being spun into wearing one.”

She reminisces about a lifetime passion for textiles: “Yards of intricately hand woven silk and golden thread jacquard fabric; I sewed into a tablecloth and napkins that adorns our Thanksgiving table. Bed sheets being woven in a mill in Pakistan and the memory of the humidity in the factory still takes my breath away. Woolens from Tennessee and Scotland, buttons from London’s Notting Hill flea market. Lace worthy of the Victoria & Albert Museum. Threads of every fiber and color gathered from Paris and numerous trips abroad were squirreled into my suitcases.”

As this making phase of her life began to wane, she says she began to examine all of the textiles she’d collected and been given over the years. She was struck with the complexity of owning, wearing, sleeping and actually being a part of this vast tradition that textiles represent globally and to her personally. This reflection fueled her needlework art.

“In 2017, while I was taking inventory of my textile holdings,” she said, “Liz Ndoye encouraged me to join hob’art gallery. Now I began looking toward making art utilizing my textile legacy while acknowledging the intimate place it holds in our everyday lives.” 

She exhibited her first works at Li Edelkoort’s NYTM/New York Textiles Month with a series of sewn fabric collages. She and Caroline Kessler co-created a video called “We are sewing as Fast as we Can.” She found herself shifting her focus from being a maker behind the products she made to finding her voice and stitching together a new perspective of her life with art that she had to stand for and in front of. Her Hoboken Museum Upper Gallery exhibit, “The Thread That Binds,” opens Sunday with a virtual opening reception on YouTube, at 4 pm.

Click here to tune in on Sunday at 4 pm

Lily has lived in Hoboken for over 35 years: “Dom’s Bakery, La Isla and Leo’s are my go-tos, and not only does Hoboken have my heart, my husband Steve of 26 years won my heart in Church Square Park. The community is unique here and we have made many lifelong friendships, memories and we plan to age in place here.” 

Click here to view her Instagram account.

 The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.